


Suffer for a Secret

by DarknessChill



Series: Sunday Night Dinners [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-25
Updated: 2017-08-17
Packaged: 2018-09-26 19:24:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9918608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarknessChill/pseuds/DarknessChill
Summary: "If throwing her alter-ego under the bus is what she has to do to make sure Chat is okay, then that's fine. She can handle it. She'd handle it."When Chat gets (literally) stomped on during a fight, it's not a difficult decision for Marinette to drag him home with her to get him patched up.





	1. Chapter 1

There are hundreds of reasons this is a bad idea, but all Ladybug can think, staring at the broken form of her partner as he tries to push himself up off the sidewalk before the press get there, is that she _ha_ _s_ _to help him_. 

She rushes forward, wrapping an arm under his shoulders and helping him unsteadily to his feet. "Stay with me, Chat, we're going to go somewhere safe, okay?" She asks, sounding more certain than she feels, wishing not for the first time that the cure, the purification, actually _worked_ on the two of them. 

"Ladybug-" Chat Noir tries to speak, but she hushes him quickly. 

"Concentrate on moving, we don't have much time." 

"The akuma?" He asks, and Ladybug beats back the flutter in her chest – why is he worried about the _akuma_ right now – to answer him. 

"I purified it. Come on, stay with me, kitty. It's not much farther." 

She can feel him drooping against her, either the pain getting to him or the transformation. He hadn't needed to use Cataclysm during their fight – thankfully, or she'd be dragging an untransformed Chat through the back streets of Paris right now – but she _did_ use Lucky Charm, and she has two minutes left, tops. 

She only has one choice and she _hate_ _s_ _it_. But this is _Chat_ and lord help her, she isn't going to let him suffer for a _secret_. 

"Tikki, spots off," she mumbles to her kwami, and feels her transformation disappear in a rush of pink light. Chat, suddenly much heavier at her side, thankfully doesn't stir, and she pushes forward, out of the alleyway and to the door of her building, ringing the bell as hurriedly as she can – be home, please somehow hear the bell! 

Her mother opens it a moment later and gasps at the scene in front of her – Marinette, using everything in her to hold up a mostly unconscious Chat Noir. 

" _Maman_ , help, please--" 

"Tom!" Sabine shouts, rushing forward to help Chat up from the other side and drag him the rest of the way into the building. "Mari, what _happened_? Are you okay?" 

"I'm fine!" Marinette promises, ignoring the stinging in her own leg where the akuma had grazed her – a flesh wound, nothing like when he had literally _landed_ on Chat. "I was on my way home when the akuma attacked and I saw Ladybug de-akumatise it, and then I saw _Chat_ and..." 

"Where did Ladybug go?" Sabine asks. 

"I don't know," Marinette lies, as Tom rushes over to help. "She must not have seen him." 

" _Shame_ on her for leaving her partner in this condition," Sabine mumbles, and Marinette flinches. (If throwing her alter-ego under the bus is what she has to do to make sure Chat is okay, then that's fine. She can handle it. She'd handle it.) She steps back, letting her father take Chat Noir from them and carry him up the stairs. "Mari, go close up the bakery." 

"But maman – Chat--" 

"Your papa and I will take care of Chat Noir. Close up the bakery and then come upstairs." Sabine orders, hurrying up the stairs. 

Staring helplessly after her parents and her partner, Marinette swallows, letting herself stand there for just a moment longer, arms curled around herself, before she pushes herself forward (keep moving forward) and into the bakery. 

* 

When she makes it upstairs a few minutes later, Chat is still, thankfully, transformed, but Marinette can hear his miraculous's warning beeps. He's laying on the couch with Sabine finishing up wrapping his wrist, and Marinette rushes over. 

"Can I help? Is he okay?" 

"He'll be fine," Sabine promises. "His leg is fractured and his wrist is broken, but they're already healing. He needs to go to the hospital, but I assume that's likely not an option..." 

Marinette swallows. "I guess not." She takes Chat's good hand, sneaking a glance at his miraculous. Three minutes.  

Sabine finishes wrapping the splint on his wrist into place. "There. Now he just needs to rest." 

"Where's Papa?" Marinette asks. 

"He went out to check for anyone else who's injured." Sabine answers. 

Marinette nods, squeezing Chat's hand and releasing it. 

"I'm going to go help him," Sabine says, standing up and brushing off her pants. "Stay here with him, okay Marinette?" 

Marinette nods, glancing at her mother and then back at Chat's sleeping form. 

"Mari," her mother hesitates. "You did the right thing, you know that? He'll be okay." 

Marinette swallows. "Thank you, maman." 

Sabine kisses her head, hurrying out of the apartment. 

_Beep_ _beep_ _beep_ \-- 

Two minutes. 

"Tikki, what do I do?" Marinette murmurs. 

"I don't think you have a choice, Marinette," Tikki says, poking out of her bag. "You can transform again, but that won't help _him_." 

Marinette looks around, spotting a blanket on the other chair, and quickly jumps up, grabbing it and spreading it over Chat, obscuring everything but his face – the most important part. She can't _suffocate_ him, though....  

"Mari--" 

Marinette doesn't give Tikki a chance to speak. Carefully, making sure not to stir him, she pushes the couch so it's facing away from the rest of the apartment, successfully hiding Chat from most of the room. She draws the curtains quickly, so no one can see inside, and glances back as his miraculous beeps once more. 

One minute. 

Nodding to herself, she steps back around to the side of the couch where she can't see. "That's not perfect, but..." 

Tikki flies up out of her bag and lands on her shoulder, nuzzling Marinette's neck. "You're doing everything you can – he'll appreciate it." 

Marinette smiles, scratching Tikki's head lightly. She's silent for just a moment, before she realizes, "His kwami will be exhausted and hungry, won't he?"  

Tikki doesn't get a chance to answer before there's a burst of green light from the couch and Chat is transformed back to his civilian form. 

Swallowing, Marinette speaks carefully, "Chat?" 

Nothing. Still asleep. Tikki darts back into her hiding place, as Marinette's eyes fall on a little black kwami as he flies up to look around and figure out where they are. 

"Hello..." Marinette says, cautiously. 

The kwami looks over at her, surprised. 

"You... You help Chat, right?" She settles for, not sure what else she can say and not give herself away. For all she knows, the kwami already knows who she is, anyway. "Are you hurt? Is he okay?" 

"You didn't look at who he is." The kwami says, surprised. 

"I... I didn't want to betray his confidence like that, not while he's injured. He's safe here, he can rest until he has the strength to transform again." Marinette says. 

The kwami glances back at the form on the couch and then flies over to Marinette, hesitating. "I'm Plagg." 

Marinette smiles. "Hi, Plagg. I'm Marinette. Are you hurt at all?" 

Plagg shakes his head, "No, just-" 

"Hungry?" Marinette guesses. 

Plagg brightens at that, nodding. "Do you have any camembert?"  

"Cheese?" Marinette giggles. "Let's find out." She lets Plagg land on her shoulder where Tikki had been minutes earlier, and quickly crosses over to the fridge, opening it up and searching through it, finally pulling out a small circular box of camembert cheese. Nodding, she flips it open. "Help yourself, Plagg." 

Plagg launches himself at it, and Marinette laughs, kicking the fridge shut behind her.  

"Can you tell if Chat is okay?" She asks, a few minutes later, once Plagg has slowed down. 

"He's okay," Plagg says, "His wrist is going to take a while to heal but his leg is much better already. Thanks for helping him." 

"Of course," Marinette says, "I wasn't going to just leave him there." 

Suddenly, the sound of a key in the lock cuts through their conversation, and Plagg flies at her, hiding in her jacket. Marinette grabs the cheese and quickly puts it away as her parents walk through the door. 

"Maman, Papa, are you okay?" Marinette asks, walking over. 

"We're fine, Marinette," Tom assures. "Did you... move the couch?" 

Marinette flushes. "Chat was about to transform back, I didn't think he'd want any of us to see who he was." 

Sabine softens, patting her on the head. "I suppose we can try and keep his secret." 

Marinette smiles at that. "Thanks, maman." 

Plagg nestles into her side, and she smiles, patting him discreetly. Maybe she can do this – maybe she can keep Chat's identity secret even from herself while he sleeps on the couch _and_ protect his kwami in the meantime. 

* 

Later that night, after her parents have retreated to their room, Marinette finds herself wide awake, worried about Chat and not wanting him to wake up alone. Plagg had gone to curl up next to his partner, and Tikki is nervously watching the couch from her perch hidden behind Marinette's hair. Mari is _trying_ to work on homework, but she can't concentrate, and she doesn't want to go upstairs and leave Chat alone. 

Thankfully, she doesn't need to. She hears stirring from the couch and her eyes fly up just as she sees someone start to sit up. Squeaking, she whirls around so she's facing the other way, and Tikki buries herself in Marinette's jacket. 

"Where... am I?" She can hear Chat mumble. 

"You're in my house," Marinette says quickly. "Don't worry, I haven't seen your face – I turned the couch and I've been over here and I fed Plagg so you should be able to transform if you wake him up and--" she flushes, slowing down. "Um, I found you outside and I brought you home – my maman splinted your wrist, said it was broken, and your leg's fractured but Plagg said that was healing quickly." 

Chat is silent, and it takes everything in Marinette not to turn around and check on him, but she finally hears him speak softly a moment later, "Plagg, claws out." 

One flash of green light later, Chat speaks up again, "You can turn around." 

Marinette peeks over her shoulder. Sure enough, Chat is transformed again, sitting on the couch facing her. 

"You brought me to your house?" He asks, as Marinette walks over to check his leg and wrist. 

"You were just down the street," Marinette says. "I figured you wouldn't want to go to the hospital, and I didn't know where Ladybug was. I couldn't just leave you there." 

Chat frowns. "I could have sworn Ladybug was the one who helped me up." 

Marinette flushes, quickly stammering out, "You were a little delirious when I found you." 

Chat looks her over, but soon enough, a smile blooms on his face. "Well, thank you, Marinette." 

Marinette flushes again - he remembers her? "Of course. How's your leg feeling?" 

"I'm okay," Chat promises, carefully standing up. Marinette can tell he isn't putting enough weight on his leg, but he's able to stand – that is definitely progress. "Tell your parents thanks for me, okay? And um," he frowns. "Thanks for feeding Plagg. I know he can be a pig." 

Marinette giggles at that. "He was perfectly sweet. He's welcome here any time. I'll keep some camembert for him." 

Chat laughs. "And what about me, Mari?" He teases. 

Marinette smiles. "Oh, did you want some cheese too, Chat?"  

Chat grins. "I should probably get going, but I'll take you up on that offer later," he promises, taking her hand and kissing it lightly. "Thanks again, Marinette." With that, he pushes open a window and swings himself out it. 

Marinette watches to make sure he's okay to move with his leg and wrist still injured before she shuts the window and the curtains, and stumbles up to her room, suddenly exhausted. 

* 

Chat slips into his dark room and transforms back in a flash of green light, glancing around. It looks like everything is the way he'd left it, thankfully, meaning no one has come to check on him – his father and Nathalie had left for a shoot in Italy a few hours ago, and the Gorilla is great about respecting his privacy – a shut door means that he won't intrude. 

Thankfully, since he'd never made it home. 

Collapsing onto his bed, he winces as he jostles his broken wrist. "Hey, Plagg, you okay?" 

"I'm good," Plagg promises. "How's the leg?" 

"Leg's okay," Adrien sighs, laying back on the bed. "Wrist still hurts. Marinette really didn't see my face?" 

"She didn't look," Plagg says, "She saw me but she didn't even try and look at you." 

"I guess I'm lucky I collapsed near the only person in France who wouldn't take advantage of an unconscious Chat Noir, huh?" Adrien asks. 

"Guess so." Plagg shrugs, curling up on the pillow next to Adrien's head. "She looked really worried about you." 

"Yeah, Marinette's too nice for her own good," Adrien mumbles, sighing. "I need to thank her somehow... And let Ladybug know I'm probably out of commission for a couple of days. I don't think I can fight with my wrist like this. My leg should be fine by tomorrow but I can't really use my baton right now." 

Plagg shoots him a look that's somewhere between a grimace and a smile. "You'll figure it out. Maybe Hawkmoth will chill for the next few days." 

Even as Plagg says the words, Adrien knows that his luck isn't that good. Ladybug's, maybe, but not his. 

Sighing, he rolls over onto his side to get some more sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Word of warning, I have only the vaguest of ideas where I'm going with this. <3


	2. Chapter 2

Adrien gets tired of the splint on his wrist exactly an hour after he wakes up, and it's only the knowledge that he'd be in much more pain without it that keeps him from ripping it off in frustration.  

"You know, it'll heal faster if you transform," Plagg comments from where he's scarfing down more camembert than Adrien even remembers giving him.  

"It will?" Adrien glances over, surprised.  

"Well, yeah. The miraculous speeds up your healing in general but it's faster when you're transformed." Plagg shrugs, flying up and over to him. 

Adrien glances down at the small kwami. "Well, that's good to know. Alright then, claws out!" He grins as his transformation washes over him, glad to have _something_ to do.   

*  

He gets bored again in record time. His wrist feels marginally better, but there's even _less_ he can do as Chat Noir with a splinted wrist than as Adrien – he doesn't even have Plagg to talk to now. He's tried calling Ladybug four times in the last six minutes to a persistent busy tone - she's not transformed, why would she be transformed, there's no akuma attacking. He does need to get in touch with her _somehow_ (man, they need burner cell phones or something, he should look into that) but beyond calling and hoping she's transformed, he has no real ideas.  

And since he's transformed, he can't even go waltzing around his house, even if his father and Nathalie are out of town.  

Sighing, he pushes open his window and glances out over Paris.   

...Well, he does still need to thank Marinette.  

Grinning, he hops up and out of the window, careful of his wrist, and starts the trek towards the Dupain-Cheng bakery.  

*  

Marinette's working on the homework she'd neglected the day before when Tikki suddenly gasps and dives into her hiding place in her purse. Startled, Marinette glances around, expecting to see her parents walking in, but instead there's Chat, waving at her from the window he'd jumped out the night before.  

She blinks, but he doesn't disappear.  

Tearing her headphones out of her ears, she jumps up and throws open the window with a shout of, "Are you _crazy_ , your wrist is still broken, you idiot, what if you _fell_ _,_ " and practically drags him through the window and into her living room.  

She stumbles backwards as he moves forward with more ease than she'd been expecting, but a steadying hand on her arm keeps her upright. "I'm spec- _cat_ -ular, Mari, don't worry." Chat smirks.  

Marinette pulls her arm from his grip and huffs at the pun. "Well, I'm glad you're feeling better. You sure weren't fine yesterday."  

Chat grins at that. "Thanks again."  

Mari softens, "Yeah, no problem." Hesitating, she glances at the kitchen. "You hungry?"  

Chat's grin widens. "Always."  

Marinette rolls her eyes. "I guess I should have known. Come on, let me see what I can scrounge up." She turns to walk into the kitchen, Chat following behind her, and opens the pantry – man, they really don't have much by way of snacks... maybe she can throw something together? 

"Working on statistics?" Chat's voice cuts through her mental contemplation of trail mix.  

She glances over her shoulder and finds him leaning against the chair she'd abandoned to drag him through the window. "Yeah – not my favorite kind of math." 

She turns back to the pantry – her father _had_ just been baking some fresh cookies downstairs, maybe should could convince him to feed wayward superheroes – but Chat's voice pulls her out of her thoughts again.  

"You should check over the second question again." 

She glances back. "What?" 

He flushes. "I wasn't snooping, sorry, I just-" 

She walks up next to him, looking at her notes on the second question. Sure enough, she'd mixed up median and mode. "Thanks," she says, shooting him a smile and scribbling a note to herself to fix it. "You know statistics?" She asks, and then immediately regrets as soon as the words are out of her mouth – stupid, Marinette, you can't _just_ \-- 

Chat stops her internal freakout in its path with a smile and a pun. "I'm _cl_ _aw_ -some at math, I'll have you know."  

Marinette sighs and rolls her eyes – almost a full four minutes without puns; she knew it had been too long. He was never allowed to meet her father while conscious. And speaking of her dad - "I'll be right back, I'm gonna check and see if I can get anything fresh from the bakery." With that, she slips out the door, leaving Chat standing in her kitchen. 

* 

As it turns out, "I have a hungry superhero upstairs," ends up being exactly what to say to convince her parents to let her take some of the food from the bakery up. Balancing a plate of fresh cookies and other assorted baked goods in one hand, Marinette carefully twists the door handle and pushes open the door that leads into their living room. 

Chat glances up from where he's standing awkwardly in the kitchen and dashes over, grabbing the door for her. 

"Thanks." Marinette relaxes, grabbing the plate again with her other hand before it can fall and smiling at him and as he shuts the door behind her. "Hope you don't have any plans today, because my mom says you're not allowed to leave until the bakery closes and she can check on your wrist," she says, putting the plate down on the kitchen counter. 

Chat smirks at her. "Well, will you look at that, I'm completely _f_ _ur_ -ee today."  

Marinette huffs out a laugh, biting her tongue so she won't give him the satisfaction, but she can't stop her small smile even as she turns away and changes the subject. "Want a drink?" 

"Sure, I'm _paw-_ rched," he teases. 

Marinette rolls her eyes. "You're _hiss_ -terical." 

Chat immediately lights up and Marinette (almost) regrets encouraging him. "Is it _cat_ -tching now?" 

"Well, I've had plenty of _purr_ -actice," Marinette teases. "Milk for the kitty, or do you want soda or something?" She adds before he has a chance to respond and continue the pun war. 

Chat looks disappointed for only a moment before his beaming smile is back. "Milk's good." 

Marinette smiles, grabbing glasses and milk and sitting down across from him to try and work on her statistics homework while they eat and wait for the bakery to close. 

* 

"Your wrist is healing nicely," Sabine comments later that evening, after the bakery's closed for the day. Tom is downstairs cleaning up and getting things ready for the next day – a surprisingly long job that Sabine would usually help with, had they not had an injured superhero upstairs. Marinette is still sitting at the table working on her homework (as it turns out, having a punning superhero sitting across from you isn't very productive), but Chat's moved to the couch so Sabine could check his spinted wrist. "I can remove the splint, but you'll have to be careful – you still shouldn't be putting much pressure on it or moving it too much." 

"Yes ma'am," Chat promises, and Sabine smiles, carefully taking his wrist to wrap it up again without the splint.  

"Have you heard from Ladybug?" She asks as she works. 

Chat frowns, shaking his head. "No, I tried calling her earlier, but she isn't transformed." He hesitates. "Why?" 

"Marinette said you were alone when she found you," Sabine said, and Marinette glances up. "At first I was thinking she'd left you there-" 

"Ladybug wouldn't do that," Chat immediately cuts in to her defense, accidentally tugging his wrist out of Sabine's grip, and Marinette swallows her small smile. 

Sabine takes his wrist again and continues as if Chat hadn't interrupted, "But then I started to wonder if maybe she was injured too." 

Marinette flinches, and quickly looks back down at her homework as Chat stiffens. "You... you think she's hurt too? She... _can't_ be, she's Ladybug. And I don't remember her getting hit, unless it happened after I went down..." 

"I'm sure she's fine," Marinette quickly cuts in, hoping she sounds more reassuring than panicked. "I mean, Alya didn't mention anything about Ladybug being injured on the Ladyblog." Alya had been across town during the akuma attack, of course, but Chat doesn't need to know that. 

Chat glances up at her and then back down at his injured wrist. "I need to get in touch with her somehow." 

Marinette's grip on her pencil tightens a bit – she needs to get away and transform and call him, but _how_ \- and as if on _cu_ _e_ , her phone buzzes with a notification from the Ladyblog about an akuma attack. 

She jumps up, opening her purse to pretend to grab her phone and really let Tikki crawl into her sleeve. "Speak of the devil, that's Alya! I'll be right back, Maman, she says she has something to show me, and you know Alya!" Knowing exactly how flimsy her excuse is, Marinette only waits for her mother's smile and nod before she slips out of the room and takes off down the stairs to duck into the alley behind her house. 

Tikki flies out of her jacket. "What are you going to do, Marinette?" 

"It's better if he thinks I _left_ him there than if he thinks I got hurt," Marinette answers. "But that doesn't matter right now anyway. Chat's out of commission and we have an akuma to take care of." 

Tikki nods, determined. 

"Tikki, spots on!" 

* 

Once Chat's wrist is wrapped again, Sabine stands up to get started on dinner ("You _are_ staying for dinner, right, Chat Noir?" "Wouldn't miss it, Mme. Cheng.") and with no other ideas, Chat turns on the TV – where the news is reporting on the akuma attacking near the Eiffel Tower. 

He jumps up and is about to make an excuse to leave when Sabine walks back in, takes one look at the TV, and turns on him. "Sit down." 

He sinks back onto the couch, swallowing. 

"Your wrist is still injured. If you want to break it again and be a liability out there, be my guest. However, if you want Ladybug to be able to concentrate, and don't want to injure yourself further and be stuck not using your wrist for even longer, I suggest you stay right there." 

Chat flinches, but glances back at the TV, and sure enough there's Ladybug, in one piece and putting up quite the fight against the akuma.  

"I'm just going to call her," he says, standing up again. "I'm not going anywhere, I swear, but she needs to know I can't make it." 

Sabine smiles and nods, and Chat sends back a careful smile of his own, slipping into the hallway. 

He considers running. He really does, he considers leaving and running to _try_ and help Ladybug, but Sabine's right – Plagg's low on energy after keeping him transformed for so long, even if he hasn't been doing much of anything while transformed, and he can't use his baton very well if at all with his wrist like this, even if it _is_ feeling a little better. 

Feeling completely helpless, Chat flips up his baton to call Ladybug. 

It rings four times before she picks up, " _Chaton_ _!_ " 

Chat relaxes as soon as he sees her. "Hey, milady," he says, forcing a smile, "I'm not going to be able to make it today – are you able to handle it?" 

" _I can manage_ ," Ladybug promises. " _More importantly, are_ you _okay?_ _I stepped away for two minutes to find something to brace your leg with and you were gone! The akuma got you pretty bad, I don't know how you got out of there on your own."_  

More relief than Chat was expecting floods him when he hears that – he knew Ladybug wouldn't just leave him lying there – and he sends her a much less forced smile. "I didn't, a friend helped me out. Don't worry, no identities were revealed," he teases.  

" _That's the least of my worries, chaton,_ " Ladybug says, " _One sec!_ " The screen goes dark for a sec as there's a crash from the other side, and Chat grips his baton tightly with his good hand, but soon enough, Ladybug's back on screen. " _Akuma found me, sorry – but I should go take care of it."_  

For once, Chat can't bring himself to make a pun, so he just quickly says, "Be careful, okay? I don't like not being there to watch your back." 

" _We both know I'm the brains of the cl_ _aw-_ _peration_ _anyway_ ," Ladybug teases, and Chat can't help his smile. " _Rest up. See you for patrol on Wednesday?_ " 

"Definitely," Chat promises. "We need to work on your punning." 

Ladybug laughs, " _Sure, Chat. S_ _ee you Wedn_ _esday."_   

The screen goes dark with a click. Chat smiles softly to himself again as he straps his baton back into his holster and heads back into the apartment, glad to see Ladybug fighting with renewed vigor on screen. 

"She okay?" Sabine asks, sending him a knowing smile. 

"Yeah, she's fine," Chat nods. "Thanks, Mme. Cheng." 

"Call me Sabine, dear," she insists. "Did you see Marinette and Alya while you were out there?" 

Chat frowns, come to think of it... "No, I didn't."  

Sabine frowns at that, "Alya probably heard about the akuma attack and dragged Marinette with her..." 

Chat flinches. "Ladybug will keep them safe," he promises. 

Sabine swallows, going back to chopping up vegetables. "I can't help but worry when my daughter is out there with a chance of being anywhere _near_ an Akuma attack." 

"She'll be fine," Chat promises.  

Sabine smiles. "Thank you, Chat Noir. Would you mind helping me with this?" 

Chat grins. "Not at all, happy to help. What can I do?" 

Sabine gives him some easy instructions for some things he can do to help her with one good hand, and when Marinette walks back in twenty minutes later, she stops as soon as she's through the doorway. 

"Maman? Are you making Chat help you cook?" She blinks, glancing at her dad, who's sitting on the couch now. 

"Don't look at me – she kicked me out of the kitchen today," Tom says, laughing at the look on Marinette's face. 

"You've done plenty cleaning up the bakery by yourself, darling, and someone ran off with their friend," Sabine insists, wiping her hands on a towel and hurrying over to hug Marinette, who hugs her back, giving Chat a strange look over her mother's shoulder, but she doesn't press the issue.  

"Sorry about that, Maman – Alya, she-" 

Sabine shakes her head as she pulls back. "I assumed as much. Come help Chat with the pasta." 

"Okay," Marinette says, walking up behind Chat, who shoots her a grin. 

"I think I'm doing a _purr_ -fectly fine job with the pasta for someone who basically never cooks." 

Marinette smacks him lightly with a towel, "Oh, we'll see about that, superhero." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can tell at exactly which point this chapter started to cooperate, oops. Many thanks to Eriyu for helping me with those cat puns! <3


	3. Chapter 3

Adrien's wrist is mostly healed by Monday, though it still hurts to move it too quickly. He unwraps it before school – Marinette sits _behind_ him, she'll definitely notice if Adrien comes into school with the same injury as the superhero she essentially spent Sunday with – and tries his best not to jostle it too much on his way into school. 

There's no sign of Marinette when he walks in, but that's not all that surprising – she has a habit of oversleeping. Nino's there, though, and he perks up as soon as Adrien sits down.  

"Bro, I tried calling you like _four times_ yesterday, where were you?" 

Adrien winces – he'd gotten back to his room after dinner with the Dupain-Chengs and had forgotten to text Nino back in the flurry of homework he'd had to finish. "Yeah, sorry, I had a... family thing." 

Nino makes a face. "Everything alright? I thought your dad was out of town for the weekend." 

"Yeah, he was, it was just a thing I had to take care of and I forgot to text you back after." It might be the flimsiest excuse Adrien's ever used.  

Nino doesn't seem entirely convinced, but he at least doesn't press the subject. "Whatever – everything okay, though?" 

"Yeah, definitely," Adrien promises. "We're still on for the movies later, while my dad's still out of town, right?" 

"Absolutely," Nino grins, fist bumping him. "Though you really shouldn't have to plan your fun around your dad's travel schedule." 

Adrien just shrugs – they've had this fight too many times for him to start it up again – and quiets down as Mme. Bustier begins class. 

* 

It's pretty late when Adrien gets home from the movies. A quick glance at his phone confirms that he has an hour, maybe two, before Nathalie and his father return. He _should_ use this time to do his homework so he isn't up all night, but... 

Plagg flies out of Adrien's jacket as soon as they're in his room with the door shut behind them. "You're going back to the bakery, aren't you?" 

Adrien smiles sheepishly. "Am I that transparent?" 

Plagg rolls his eyes. "Yes." 

"I don't know when I'll get another chance," Adrien says, sighing. "Once my father's back in town, I'll be back to barely having time for patrol. I've already got a photoshoot tomorrow and fencing practice and a piano lesson on Wednesday before patrol--" 

Plagg cuts him off. "Okay, okay, I get it, kid." 

Adrien rolls his eyes. "It's just... nice there. They're all really nice, and there's no _pressure._ " 

Plagg smiles. "Well, what are you waiting for, then?" 

Adrien grins, and a moment later, Chat Noir's making his way across the rooftops to the bakery to spend a couple of hours with his classmate's family. 

* 

As soon as his father's back, so is Adrien's busy schedule, and just as he expected, there's no time for him to sneak away and go to the bakery after his impromptu trip there on Monday night. His photoshoot on Tuesday runs late and he has to scramble to try and finish his homework in time to get any sleep, and Wednesday's fencing practice and piano lesson end with less than an hour to spare before he's supposed to meet Ladybug for patrol.  

"This might be completely out there, but bear with me," Plagg speaks up as Adrien is eating his dinner and trying to read a history chapter at the same time. 

"Hm?" Adrien glances over at the kwami. 

"Have you thought about... _not_ doing all of the things that make your schedule crazy?" Plagg asks, landing on his shoulder. "You're driving yourself into the ground." 

Adrien flinches. "I can't just quit any of them. Fencing and piano were two of my father's conditions for me going to school, and he's definitely not going to let me stop _modeling_." 

Plagg makes a face. "You could try and negotiate." 

"The thing he'll take out of my schedule is _school_ ," Adrien answers, leaning back in his chair. "It's fine, Plagg. I've got a handle on it." 

"For now, anyway," Plagg grumbles, but flies over to his plate of camembert to finish up before Adrien has to transform. 

* 

Ladybug's already waiting when he gets to their meeting spot, and she grins when she spots him, hopping up. "Hey! Feeling better?" She asks, glancing at his wrist. 

_"_ _Purr_ -fectly fine _,_ m'lady," Chat assures with an answering grin, and Ladybug rolls her eyes, but smiles again.  

"Good. Shall we, then?" 

Chat nods, and then they're off, following their typical patrol route across the rooftops.  

As they approach their first typical stopping point, Chat turns and calls over to Ladybug, "Did you have any trouble with the akuma the other day? Sorry I couldn't make it."  

Ladybug shoots him a withering look, "You had a broken wrist," and then shakes her head, slowing to a stop near the Eiffel Tower. "No, the akuma was easy. She seemed almost... distracted, like she wasn't entirely sure what she was doing."  

Chat stops next to her, frowning. "That's strange." 

"Maybe she was just a bad choice of akuma victim." Ladybug sighed. "Either way, it made my job easier." 

Chat smiles at that, "Clawsome." 

Ladybug glances back over at him, frowning. "Okay, that one seemed more forced than usual. Are you alright?" 

Chat shrugs. "Just been a long day." 

Ladybug clearly isn't buying it, and she hesitates for just a second before saying, "You know you can talk to me, right? If you need to? We may not be able to tell each other who we are under the masks, but you're my partner and you're my friend. I'm here for you if you need me." 

Chat swallows, "Thanks, Ladybug." 

Ladybug offers him a warm smile, and after a moment of silence that proves Chat isn't about to start suddenly talking about his problems, she changes the subject. "So, your leg and wrist are 100% better?" 

"98% at least," Chat answers. 

"Good." Ladybug nods, standing up and stretching. "Race you to the Louvre!" She grins. 

"Oh you're on, bugaboo." Chat grins back, and Ladybug laughs as they take off through the streets of Paris. 

* 

Ladybug rushes home after patrol. She doesn't know for sure that Chat is going to come by – she has no idea, actually – but with the way he was acting during patrol and how off he seemed the entire time, she has a feeling he needs a friend right now. She'd offered as Ladybug, of course, but she can understand why rooftops in the middle of Paris may not have been the best place. He'd seemed to be in a much better mood by the time they split off for the night, but just in case... 

She slips through her skylight and transforms back immediately, offering Tikki one of the cookies she'd grabbed from the kitchen before coming upstairs for the night. "Hide if Chat comes by, okay?" 

"Okay," Tikki says sleepily, taking the cookie and munching on it.  

Marinette smiles, patting Tikki's head lightly, and climbs down from her loft, plopping into her desk chair and picking up the project she'd been working on before leaving for patrol – Alya's birthday gift. After Alya had complained about her hands getting cold while she was out filming for the ladyblog, Marinette had thought up the idea, and with only a few days before Alya's birthday, she's just about done with them. 

She's finishing up the embroidery a few minutes later when there's a tap on the window in front of her. Sure enough, there's Chat. Smiling at him, she points up to the balcony, and when he nods and disappears to meet her up there, she glances around for Tikki. 

"I'll be over here," Tikki says, ducking into her blanket cocoon on the bed, and Marinette smiles.  

"Thanks, Tikki," she says quickly, climbing up to the loft and pushing open the skylight. "Hey, stranger, come on in." 

Chat smiles and slips inside, careful not to step on her bed. "Sorry it's been a few days." 

Marinette shakes her head. "It's not like you said you'd be here and didn't show up or anything – I assumed you've been busy." She hesitates. "You okay? How's your wrist?" 

"Wrist is good," Chat promises. "I'm-" the hesitation gives him away immediately. "I'll be fine." 

Marinette purses her lips, but she knows Chat well enough to know that pushing him – as Ladybug or as Marinette – won't help anything.  

So she doesn't. "Do you want to watch a movie or something? Do you have some time?" 

Chat relaxes, smiling easily at her. "A movie sounds amazing, _purr-_ incess." 

Marinette makes a face at the pun but lets it slide – it sounds a lot less forced than his puns from patrol – and nods. "You like dragons?" 

Chat blinks. "I guess?" 

"Perfect, I know just the thing." Marinette smiles, and hops down the ladder to get everything set up. 

* 

"How have you never seen How to Train Your Dragon?" Marinette laughs as the credits roll on the movie later that night.  

Chat shrugs, smiling at her. "I don't know, I must have just... missed it or something." 

"I'm guessing you liked it?" She teases, leaning back and turning to watch him. He already seems much more relaxed than he had when he slipped through her skylight, even after one short movie. 

"More than I thought I would," he admits. "Thanks, Mari." 

Marinette smiles. "Of course. Next time you're here we'll watch the sequel." 

"There's a sequel?" Chat grins, and Marinette laughs again, before remembering sharply that her parents are asleep and will have to wake up in... shit, four hours. 

Chat follows her gaze to the clock. "Oh, wow, it's late." 

Marinette sighs. "Yeah." 

"I should probably get going." Chat says, standing up and stretching. "Thanks again for this." 

Marinette smiles. "Any time, Chat – seriously," she says, standing up as well and following him up towards the skylight and out onto the balcony. 

Once both outside, Chat turns to her with his trademark smirk on his face. "Well, I'll see you soon, _purr-_ incess." 

Marinette rolls her eyes. "Stop that." 

Chat winks and turns to jump off the balcony to head home.  

And then Marinette remembers she's been meaning to ask him something since she'd seen him cooking with her mother last Sunday. "Chat, wait!" 

He turns, surprised. "Yeah?" 

"Um. Sunday night dinners – they're a tradition," she says, carefully, hesitating as she tries to think of the right way to phrase her question. "We all cook and eat together and spend the evening together." 

Chat sends her an odd look. "Okay..." 

"You should come," she blurts. Taking a breath, she adds, "I mean, we'd all love it if you came. To dinner. On Sundays." 

Sundays. Plural. There it was, the standing invitation to come back that she'd been waiting to offer all week. 

A smile grows on Chat's face until he's practically beaming at her. "I'll be there. Thanks, princess." 

Marinette flushes – why is that nickname _sticking_? - and smiles back. "See you Sunday, then, Chat." 

"See you Sunday." Chat smiles once more, before jumping to the next roof and disappearing into the night. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how to Nino, I'm so sorry. Hopefully he's alright. We're finally going to get to move forward next chapter maybe! That'd be nice.
> 
> I have recently dragged myself back onto tumblr if anyone wants to bug me there when this fic inevitably starts to float away from me. (I mean, maybe I'm wrong and it won't happen. But the last fic I finished took me 61 chapters and 8 years. This one isn't going to be that long so hopefully that also means it won't have the break times that one did.) Anyway, I'm <http://darknesschill.tumblr.com/> over on tumblr!


	4. Chapter 4

Chat comes to dinner that Sunday, and the next Sunday, and the next. He shows up when he can during the week as well, whether to hang out and watch a movie with Marinette, act as a motivator (and occasional helper) with homework, or sometimes, just to take a nap (though Marinette usually has to bug him until he admits he's exhausted and agrees to sleep.) 

It's become normal for Sabine and Tom to find him in the living room with Marinette, but Marinette is usually the one to let him in. So, she doesn't even _think_ about the fact that someone else may have on an evening she comes home late with Alya in tow. 

She opens the door, locks eyes with Chat, who's sitting in a chair across the room and talking to her mother, and her eyes widen in panic. 

Alya hasn't seen him yet – her eyes are locked on her phone and she's still around the corner – but if she steps forward even a little bit, the first thing she'll see is _Chat Noir_ sitting casually in Marinette's living room. 

Marinette doesn't _actually_ panic. She doesn't. But she does frantically wave him towards the bathroom, eyes darting between Chat and Alya, trying to broadcast that he needs to hide without actually _saying_ anything.  

Chat gives her a weird look and goes to speak up, but Sabine beats him to the punch. "Marinette, is that you?"  

Marinette relaxes the tiniest fraction. "Me and Alya, yes, maman," she calls pointedly. 

Chat's eyes widen in understanding and he leaps up, ducking into the bathroom just as Alya looks up from her phone and turns the corner. 

"Hi, Mme. Cheng," she greets, leaning against the counter as Marinette breathes a heavy sigh of relief and shuts the door behind them. "Marinette and I have a project due, so she invited me by to work on it." 

"Oh, that's no problem," Sabine assures. "Why don't you head upstairs, Alya, and Marinette will bring some snacks up in a minute." 

"Sounds good." Alya grins. "See you up there, Marinette." 

Alya vanishes up the stairs and shuts the trap door behind her, and Marinette sags a little against the counter. 

"That was too close," she breathes, glancing at her mother, before dashing to the bathroom door and knocking hurriedly. "Chat?" 

He opens the door a crack and peeks out. "All clear?" 

"She's upstairs," Marinette confirms. "I am _so_ sorry; I didn't realize you were here." 

Chat chuckles. "It's okay, you should be able to bring your friends over without worrying about a superhero being in your living room." 

Marinette shakes her head firmly. "No. You don't have to hide here. I'll call ahead next time, or go to Alya's." 

Chat startles, but smiles at her. "I... thanks." 

Marinette smiles back. "If it was anyone else, it wouldn't even be a big deal, but of course, my best friend has to run the Ladyblog." She sighs. "I'll keep her upstairs and I'll make sure you know when she comes back down," she promises. 

Chat smiles again. "I can just go, it's honestly okay." 

Marinette shoots him a stern look. "Absolutely not." 

Sabine speaks up from the kitchen. "You know you're welcome here, Chat. Marinette, here are those snacks." 

"Thanks, maman," Marinette says, picking up the plate. Glancing over her shoulder at Chat, she adds, "Are you still coming over for movie night tomorrow?" 

Chat grins at that. "Wouldn't miss it." 

Marinette beams, "See you then," and hurries up into her room. 

* 

Adrien slips into his house after he leaves the bakery, shutting the window and trying desperately not to think about the fact that the mansion has been less and less like _home_ lately. When he thinks of home, he's started thinking of the smell of warm baked goods wafting up from the floorboards as they're baked, of laughter and trying to free popcorn kernels from the couch after movie night, of Sunday night dinners. 

Plagg flies out of his ring as he detransforms and flops onto his couch, whining out, "Feed meeeeee." 

Adrien rolls his eyes at the kwami, but grabs a box of camembert from the stash and hands it over without complaint – after all, Plagg is the reason he's able to transform and head over to the bakery whenever he has a free minute. 

And speaking of free minutes, he's almost out of them. He still has a pile of homework to get done before school tomorrow, plus Nathalie scheduled him for a fitting before school for a shoot tomorrow afternoon that he has to miss a class for.  

All he wants to do is crawl into bed and pass out until Nathalie needs him in the morning, but he hasn't mastered doing his homework in his sleep yet, so to his desk he goes. He could have come straight home from fencing practice and worked on his homework and he'd probably be able to actually get some substantial sleep for once, but... going to the bakery is worth it. Going to the bakery is always worth it. 

And with that in mind, he settles in for a long night. 

* 

Movie nights became a tradition for Marinette and Chat the first time he'd shown up on Wednesday night after patrol. They aren't on Wednesdays anymore – patrol is late enough, and Marinette seriously regretted the even later night by the time she dragged herself to class the next morning – but on most Fridays, Chat'll show up sometime in the evening, and they'll watch a couple of movies and fight over the popcorn. 

The sound of Chat letting himself in the window that Marinette leaves open for him on movie nights makes her look up from where she's digging through her collection of movies. Since finding out that Chat had never seen How To Train Your Dragon, Marinette has made it a personal mission to figure out what other animated essentials he's never seen. As it turns out, the answer is 'most of them', and they've been working their way through her collection since. They're making decent progress, with Tangled and The Triplets of Belleville on the list for tonight. 

"Hey, princess," Chat greets, plopping onto the couch with a teasing wink. "Sorry I'm late." 

Marinette rolls her eyes. "It's not like we have a set start time. Everything okay, though?" she asks, popping Tangled in and detouring to the kitchen to get the popcorn she'd made earlier. 

"Yep," Chat promises. "Just had some trouble sneaking out." 

Marinette nods, not pushing him – though she can tell by the tense set of his shoulders that he isn't telling the whole truth – and plops down onto the couch next to him, careful not to jostle the popcorn.  

"Well, we've got two excellent movies up for tonight, if you're ready to get started?" She asks, smiling at him. 

"A- _fur_ -mative." Chat grins, and Marinette rolls her eyes again, settling back for a long night of puns and popcorn. 

* 

Chat falls asleep halfway through The Triplets of Belleville, and Marinette is honestly surprised it took him that long. He's been drifting closer all evening, obviously exhausted, and idly, as Chat dozes off, head resting against her shoulder, she wonders if he's slept for more than an hour since she talked him into a nap on the chaise the other day. 

Her guess is no, and that sort of infuriates her. She knows Chat's busy in his civilian life, but doesn't he have anyone that takes care of him and recognizes when he's doing _too much_? She's never pushed him into talking about it – at first because she just didn't want to push him, and now because she's afraid that _if_ she asks, he'll tell her everything, and she's not ready to do the same. 

But she's worried about him, and she resolves to talk to him – really talk to him – next time they meet up. But for tonight, all she can do is let him sleep, and so, clicking the movie off, she does just that. 

* 

Marinette wakes up to the sound of beeping, and at first she thinks she somehow fell asleep as Ladybug. Then she registers the weight pressing against her and she remembers – Chat fell asleep during movie night. 

And Plagg's low on energy. 

She carefully takes his hand to look at his ring – two pads left. Nudging him lightly, trying to wake him but not startle him, she speaks. "Chat – Chat, wake up, you're about to transform back." 

Chat stirs, sleepily mumbling, "Mari?" 

"Hey," Marinette says softly. "You fell asleep. Your ring is beeping." 

Chat's eyes fly open at that and he looks down at his ring. "Crap, I have to go." 

Marinette smiles, yawning and rubbing sleep out of her eyes. "I have some cheese for Plagg, hold on. In case you can't get home before your transformation runs out."  

They detangle themselves from the blanket on the couch and Chat follows Marinette into the kitchen. "Sorry I fell asleep on you," he mumbles. "Didn't mean to." 

Marinette grabs the box of camembert and turns to hand it to him. "I'm just glad you _got_ some sleep," she assures. "You seemed exhausted." 

"I'm okay," Chat promises, and as usual, Marinette does not believe him. "Thanks again, princess – see you Sunday?" 

Marinette nods. "See you Sunday." Chat waves and hops out the window, and Marinette waits just a moment to make sure everything is okay before she shuts and locks it. It's close to 4am, meaning her parents would be up to start their day soon – and all she can do is hope that they didn't get up during the night and walk out of their room to find her and Chat curled up on the couch, fast asleep, because oh _god._ She cuts off that train of thought right there before it circles. They were only sleeping. There's nothing else going on. 

 There isn't. 

Groaning softly, Marinette glances at the window one last time before trudging up the stairs to her bedroom to sleep for a few more hours. 

* 

She only makes it through breakfast – food eaten at 11:58 AM is still technically food eaten in the morning, and therefore still technically counts as breakfast – before she runs out of excuses to stay upstairs and not find out if her parents caught her and Chat on the couch last night. She could stay up in her room and work on one of her projects, but – no, she's just avoiding facing her parents, and she doesn't even know if they _saw_ anything. 

And even if they did, does she have any reason to be worried? Her parents _love_ Chat, and they'll _understand_ that it was completely innocent, that they'd just fallen asleep. It's fine, they'll be fine. 

"So, did you and Chat have fun last night?" 

Marinette screams and almost throws her phone as she whirls around to see her mother poking her head through the trap door she'd left open when she'd come back upstairs after eating. "Maman!" She manages to gasp out. 

Sabine smiles, walking the rest of the way up and into the room. "I was just coming to make sure you were awake." 

"Y-yeah, I'm up," Marinette smiles. "Sorry if we kept you and Papa up last night." 

Sabine shakes her head. "You were fine. Tired, though?" She teases. 

Marinette groans, feeling red creeping up her neck and onto her cheeks – she definitely saw. "He fell asleep first, and I didn't have the heart to make him move," she says, and it's only half a lie. 

Sabine smiles again, patting her daughter on the head. "You know that I'm absolutely on Team Chat-Gets-More-Sleep." 

Marinette can't help but smile at that despite her embarrassment. "He really needs to." 

Sabine shakes her head softly. "That _boy._ " Pausing, she turns back to Marinette. "I know you know what I'm about to ask." 

"Maman..." Marinette groans. "There's nothing going on." 

"I know that," Sabine promises. "But do you want there to be?" 

Marinette's heart leaps into her throat. "You know exactly who I have feelings for," she says, her blush deepening at a furious pace.  

"It _is_ possible to have feelings for more than one person," her mother reminds her, running a hand through her bands to sweep them out of her eyes. "And I'm just letting you know if something _were_ to be going on, your father and I would be completely supportive." She smiles and turns to head back downstairs. 

"I do not have feelings for Chat Noir," Marinette protests stubbornly despite the blush that _will not calm down_. 

"Mhmm." Sabine smiles. "As you've said. I should get back down to the bakery, but you know where we are if you need anything."  

With that, she starts down the stairs, even as Marinette shouts another protesting, "Maman!" From behind her. 

A car alarm on the street behind them startles Marinette out of her racing thoughts and she jumps, running over to her windows to peek outside. 

An akuma. _Oh thank god._  

Shutting the trap door into her room, Marinette calls, "Tikki?" 

Tikki zooms out of the pillow pile on Marinette's bed where she'd been hiding. "Ready!" 

And with a nod and a shout, they're off. 

* 

Ladybug likes to think she's pretty lucky, at least when she's wearing spots. Marinette may have pretty crappy luck most of the time, but Ladybug? Ladybugs are a symbol of good luck, and some of that _has_ to have rubbed off onto her. 

Apparently not. 

Chat's not there yet when she reaches the akuma – probably best, since she's still pretty flustered from her conversation with her mother – so she takesa second to analyze the situation. She has no idea who the akuma victim is, but the akuma has manifested itself as a _very_ angry tree. 

A very angry, _walking_ tree. 

"What is this, Guardians of the Galaxy?" Chat asks, dropping to the ground beside her. "I am Groot?" 

She can't help but laugh at that – of _course_ he's seen Guardians of the Galaxy, but not Tangled. 

Grinning at her, Chat continues. "Or are we in a Treebeard situation here? The Ents are going to war?" 

Ladybug shoves him, still laughing. "Okay, okay, stop it." 

Chat grins again, but they both have to jump out of the way as Treebeard notices them and slams a branch down towards them with a shout of, "Miraculouses!" 

As they're diving out of the way, Ladybug can't help the, "Looks like more of a Whomping Willow situation," that slips out.  

Chat almost trips as he starts laughing, whirling around on the akuma. "Well, let's see if we can chop this tree down, then," he says, grinning at her once more before diving towards the roots. 

And that's when things start going south. 

Ladybug winds up her yo-yo to distract the akuma and manages to hook onto one of the flying branches, but just as she's about to vault up to the tree-akuma's body, another, smaller branch comes swinging out from behind her. 

Ladybug can withstand a lot – she's been thrown into cars, across town, jumped into the mouth of a _literal_ dinosaur – but apparently not even a magical superhero can withstand being clonked on the back of the head by a tree branch with the force of a frying pan. 

Spots dance in front of her and she feels her legs crumble as darkness encroaches on the edge of her vision. Distantly, she thinks she hears someone shouting for her, but she can't seem to make her mouth move to respond, and the darkness engulfs her. 

* 

Chat sees Ladybug go down and he screams. 

_She's fine. She has to be fine._  

Shouting out a Cataclysm, he runs towards his partner, slamming his hand into the branch currently trying to remove Ladybug's miraculous. The akuma shouts in pain as the branch burns away, and Chat wastes no time, scooping up Ladybug's limp body and making a hasty retreat as the akuma roars. 

He ducks into the alley next to the bakery without really thinking about it. There's only one place he can imagine taking the unconscious – _she's fine, she has to be fine_ \- Ladybug, and that's to Sabine. 

Readjusting her position in his arms, he pushes open the back door to the building and lets himself in, shouting for Sabine. 

He can hear her in the bakery, asking Tom to cover the front, and a moment later, she rushes out, exhaling sharply when she spots him. 

"Hurry, hurry, bring her upstairs," she says, gesturing and dashing up the stairs ahead of him to get the door open. "What happened?" 

"She got knocked over the head," Chat answers. "She isn't bleeding or anything-" _She's fine, she has to be fine_ , "-but I couldn't just leave her there." 

Sabine nods. "Here, put her down on the couch." She grabs an ice pack from the freezer, easing it behind Ladybug's head as Chat carefully lays her down on the living room couch. "I assume the hospital is out of the question?" She asks Chat. 

"She won't even let _me_ know who she is," Chat answers. "Do you think she needs a doctor?" 

"Head injuries are tricky," Sabine answers. "The fact that it knocked her unconscious isn't a good sign. If she was anyone else, I would be bringing her to the hospital right now." 

Chat swallows nervously. _She has to be fine_. 

"But you healed a broken wrist in three days," Sabine adds. "She's breathing normally. I'll keep an eye on her." 

Chat nods. "I can stay with her, too." 

The beeping of his ring – the beeping he's been ignoring – interrupts them. 

"You have a minute left," Sabine reminds him. "Why don't you go rest, and then try and track down the akuma. Does Ladybug have a way to contact you?" 

Chat nods – they'd gone ahead with the burner phones after the last injury. 

"Good. Go rest. I'll watch over her." Sabine promises. 

"She won't stay transformed forever," Chat protests. 

"If I hear her miraculous beeping, I'll make sure to hide her just like we hid you." Sabine promises. 

Chat sags a little and nods. "Thank you, Sabine." 

Sabine squeezes his hand. "Of course. Be _careful_." 

"I will," he promises. "I'll stop by later." And with that, Chat jumps out one of the windows, barely making it to the alley behind the school before he transforms back. 

* 

Brushing some hair away from Ladybug's mask, Sabine sighs softly, murmuring, "Oh, what sort of mess have you gotten yourself into this time, Mari?" before standing up and leaving her to rest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sabine knows things.........
> 
> This took longer than I would have liked, but in my defense, I was working on a [video](http://darknesschill.tumblr.com/post/158728115470/so-i-did-a-thing-update-for-sfas-coming-i) for a few days. The next chapter is already started though, so hopefully I'll have it out soon! <3


	5. Chapter 5

Marinette wakes up on her couch, and for a moment, she can't remember what happened. The back of her head is throbbing and her eyes won't focus properly on the ceiling above her, but as she lays still, blinking to clear her vision, everything suddenly comes back to her. The akuma. The tree branch. She sits up quickly – too quickly – and immediately regrets it as she shuts her eyes to defend against the spots at the edge of her vision. 

"Ladybug!" A voice – her mother? - shouts, surprised. Ladybug? Oh. She must still be transformed. 

A cup of water is pressed into her hand. "Here, drink slowly." 

Ladybug listens, taking a small sip of the water. "What happened?" 

"Chat Noir brought you here. You got hit pretty hard on the head," Sabine says, leaning Ladybug's head forward to check the bump on the back of it. "No bleeding, that's good. How do you feel?" 

_Fine, as long as I don't move_. "A little dizzy, but I'm okay," Ladybug answers, taking another sip of water. Satisfied that her vision has cleared, she pushes up from the couch to stand up and sways a little on her feet once standing.  

Sabine jumps up, surprised, and pushes her carefully back down to a sitting position. "You need to rest." 

"The akuma is still out there, and Chat Noir can't purify it alone," Ladybug protests. "I'll rest as soon as it's taken care of." 

Sabine puts a hand on Ladybug's shoulder. "Why don't you sit for a few minutes and call him," she suggests, squeezing her shoulder lightly. "He needed to transform back and then he was going to look for the akuma before coming to check on you. Better you find out _where_ he is before you run around the city looking for him." 

Ladybug hesitates, but nods – her mother's right, of course. Grabbing her yo-yo, she flips it up to call Chat, but it gets no signal. "He's not transformed," she mumbles. "I can call him, but I need to detransform too." She hesitates. "Can I use your bathroom, Mme...?" 

"Call me Sabine," she insists, and Ladybug resolves to never get into a situatio where she needs to use her mother's first name. "Of course you can, it's just over here." 

Ladybug stands up more carefully this time, and sways only slightly – good, the throbbing has subsided somewhat – following Sabine to the bathroom. Thanking her softly, Ladybug locks the bathroom door behind her and leans against it, exhaling sharply. 

"Tikki, spots off," she murmurs, and detransforms. Tikki rushes at her. 

"Are you okay? You got hit really hard, I did what I could but I can only absorb so much, and--" 

Marinette cuts off the panicked kwami with a relieved laugh. "I'm okay, Tikki, really," she promises, pulling a cookie out of her bag for her to munch on and grabbing the burner phone Chat had handed her a few weeks before, sending a quick message. 

**thanks** **for the save - w** **here are you?**  

The response is almost immediate. 

**thank** **god -** **i** **was worried about you! plagg'** **s recharging,** **i'** **m** **in the park across town because the tree akuma headed this way.**  

**i'** **ll** **be there as soon as I can.**  

**n** **o, rest!** **y** **ou got KNOCKED OUT, ladybug.**  

**a** **nd you can't purify the akuma alone.**  

**w** **hat if I call you when I find** **it?** **w** **ill** **you rest until then? Sabine and her family are amazing, they won't mind you staying there.**  

Marinette flushes a little as she reads that – the fact that Chat even trusted her family enough to bring an unconscious Ladybug here says a _lot_ , and now that her head is a little clearer, she can recognize that. But she can't go out there and pretend in front of her mother, pretend to have no idea who she is, until whenever Chat finds the akuma.  

Her eyes fall on the window in the bathroom, and she nods to herself. Chat wants her to rest? Fine. But not _here_. 

**p** **romise you'll call when you find the akuma?**  

**p** **urr-omise**  

**t** **hank you, chat**  

**a** **nytime, bug <3** 

Marinette puts the phone down on the sink so it won't get sucked into her transformation, and looks over at Tikki. "You okay?" 

Tikki hesitates. " _I_ am, but... what are you going to do?" 

"Find somewhere safe to rest," Marinette promises. 

"You're safe _here,"_ Tikki insists. 

"I know, but I _can't_ , Tikki." Marinette sighs. 

Tikki hesitates again, but finally nods, and Marinette smiles at her. "Tikki, spots on."  

Once transformed, Ladybug unlocks the bathroom door, grabs her phone, and pushes open the window. "Sorry, maman," she mumbles, before slipping out into the streets of Paris. 

* 

Chat's halfway to the Eiffel Tower, looking to get a bird's eye view and hopefully find their giant, rampaging tree, when his burner phone starts buzzing again. Frowning, he stops on a roof and pulls it out, answering quickly when he sees the number. "Sabine?" 

_"Is Ladybug with you?"_ Sabine asks. 

Chat freezes. "No – I told her to stay there and rest." 

_"She snuck out through the window in the bathroom."_ Sabine sighs. 

His stupid, _stubborn_ bug. Chat sighs. "I'll call her and find her. Thanks, Sabine." 

_"Be careful, please,"_ Sabine says. _"Both of you."_  

"We always are," Chat promises. 

_"Is that why I've had both of you injured in my living room recently?"_ Sabine asks, and Chat laughs. 

"You've had both of us injured in your living room because you're the most trustworthy woman in Paris," Chat assures her. "I'll let you know when I find Ladybug." 

_"Thank you, Chat."_  

"Thank _you_ , Sabine," Chat says, before hanging up and immediately calling Ladybug. 

She answers right away, with a quick, _"Did you find the akuma?"_ before he has a chance to say anything. 

"Not yet – I thought you were staying at the Dupain-Chengs," Chat asks. "Sabine just called me." 

_"I'm resting, just not there."_ Ladybug says, sounding sheepish, and Chat sighs. 

"They're trustworthy, bug," he promises. 

_"I know that."_ Ladybug sighs. _"I just needed to transform back_ _._ _"_  

Chat knows her well enough to tell she's lying, but her voice sounds steady and none of her words are slurring, so he drops it, heading towards the tower again with the phone still held up to his ear. "I'm still looking for our akuma, but Treebeard is  proving tough to find." 

_"Did you try the tower?"_ Ladybug asks, and Chat smiles. 

"Read my mind, milady – I'm on my way there now." 

She giggles. _"Guess that's why we make a good team."_  

Chat grins. "How're you feeling?" He asks, using his baton to propel himself up onto the tower and carefully balancing the phone so he won't drop it. 

_"I'm okay,"_ Ladybug promises. _"I heal quick."_  

Chat nods. "Well, stay resting until I find the--" he trails off. 

_"Chat?"_ Ladybug asks, concerned. 

"Never mind. Treebeard is near the Eiffel Tower," he says, eyes locking on the rampaging tree. "You okay to move?" 

_"I'll be there as soon as I can,"_ Ladybug answers. _"Be careful."_  

"You too." Chat nods and waits until he hears the click of Ladybug hanging up before he tucks the phone away and launches himself towards the akuma. 

* 

Besides getting in a lucky shot against Ladybug earlier, the tree akuma (whose name Chat _still_ doesn't know) doesn't put up as much of a fight as he'd expected. Chat's able to hold his own rather well, keep the akuma distracted and away from the fleeing civilians on the street below, and even ascertains that the barrette nestled in the leaves near the akuma's head is likely where their evil little butterfly is hiding. Once Ladybug shows up and they free the barrette from the akuma's clutches, the battle ends quickly, ladybugs flying out across Paris to fix all the damage caused, and leaving two superheroes whose transformations, for once, aren't about to run out on them. 

"Wow, it's been _ages_ since we beat an akuma without using our powers," Ladybug breathes as she leans against the chimney of a roof not far from where they'd defeated Treebeard. 

Chat grins and nods. "Feels like we never get a chance to talk outside of patrol," he agrees. 

"Well, we don't usually hang out besides during patrol," Ladybug reminds him, and Chat can't help his smile. 

It falters only slightly as he asks, "How's your head?" 

"It's fine," Ladybug promises. "I'm barely dizzy anymore." 

Chat sighs. "Well, sit down and rest before you head home?" 

Ladybug chuckles. "I guess I can manage that." She slides so she's sitting with her back against the chimney. After a moment's hesitation, Chat shifts so he's sitting down next to her. 

Silence hands in the air for only a minute before Ladybug breaks it. "Can I ask a random question?" 

Chat glances over. "Anything, m'lady," he says with a smile. 

Ladybug hesitates, but finally asks, "Why did you bring me to the Dupain-Cheng bakery?" 

Chat can't help but smile at that. "They're the ones that took care of me after that akuma stomped on me last month," he says without hesitation. "I trust them. More than most people, actually." 

"Oh," Ladybug mumbles. 

Chat smiles again. "They're...." He pauses, almost hesitating, but no – this is Ladybug, his _partner_ , he can tell her anything. "They're basically my family, at this point. I hang out there all the time. I feel more at home there than my own house." 

Ladybug startles. "Really?" 

Chat nods. "I'd tell them who I am," he admits. "In a heartbeat." 

Ladybug stiffens at that. "You trust them that much?" 

Chat nods again. "But, I owe it to you to make sure I tell you first." He winks. "And since you're being spec- _cat-_ ulary stubborn about that..." He teased. 

Ladybug rolls her eyes, shoving him slightly. "We're having a heart to heart here, don't ruin it with cat puns." 

Chat just grins at her. 

Ladybug silent for a second before her smile falls. "I couldn't do that." 

Chat's grin falters. "Do what?" 

"Tell my family," she says, resting her chin on her knees. "I'd do _anything_ to keep them safe, and if they knew, they'd worry. They'd put themselves at risk to make sure I'm safe, and _they'd_ be at risk if anything ever happened to me." 

Chat hesitates, before prodding softly, "But what if something _does_ happen to you?" 

Ladybug pauses. "This is going to sound awful, but... I'd rather they find out I'm Ladybug because I don't come home one day than worry about that exact thing happening _every_ time I go out" 

Chat isn't sure what to say to that, and Ladybug speaks again before he has a chance to come up with something. "Chat?" 

"Yeah, Bug?" 

"If something _does_ happen to me..." Ladybug swallows. "If something does happen to me, can you find my parents and tell them?" 

Chat startles. 

"Hopefully nothing will happen!" Ladybug quickly adds. "But if something _does_ \- don't let my parents wonder." 

Chat puts an arm around her and pulls her close, Ladybug burying her face in his shoulder. "Okay. I promise," he manages to say. 

"Thank you," she mumbles.  

Chat doesn't know what else he can say, so he just lets the silence fall and sits there holding Ladybug close until they finally split off to go home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry to keep you waiting! Good news, I have the next three chapters all planned out and fun parts of some of them written. Also good news, the next chapter should be pretty fluffy. Bad news, it might be the last fluffy one for a while. (Sorry!) Thanks for reading!


	6. Chapter 6

Marinette has never been as grateful for her super-healing as when she walks into class on Monday morning with only the vestiges of a headache left. Over the course of the week, the pain fades more and more until by Friday she can't tell she'd had a head injury at all. 

She's sitting in her last class of the day on Friday when she gets startled out of a daydream by Mme Bustier talking about a group project they'll be working on for the next two weeks. 

She's missed what the project's about – something to do with History? - only snapping back into focus now that Mme Bustier is talking about partners. 

"I'm allowing you to pick your partners this time, but know that I have veto rights should I decide the partnership will be more disruptive than productive," Mme Bustier explains. Her eyes are on Kim and Alix as she speaks, and Marinette glances over her shoulder to see Kim grinning sheepishly. 

"Have your partners and a project topic picked out by Monday morning for approval," Mme Bustier says, before dismissing them to talk amongst themselves. 

"I can't believe we have _another_ group project," Alya whines. "We _just_ finished that project for Science." 

"I guess the teachers are big on collaboration this year." Adrien shrugs. 

Alya huffs."Well, I call Nino for this one," she says before Marinette can say anything, and Mari jumps, glancing from Alya to Nino to Adrien. If Alya and Nino are partners... 

Adrien smiles, looking over at Marinette. "Want to be partners then, Marinette?" 

Marinette smiles at that, relieved. "I thought you might ask Chloe or something," she admits. 

Adrien shakes his head. "Nah, I want to work on this with you," he says, beaming, and Marinette falters. "If that's okay." 

"Y-yeah!" Marinette nods enthusiastically. "Of course." She pops open her water bottle and takes a long sip, ignoring the grin Alya shoots her from her side. "So, any ideas what we should do our projects on?" 

Alya sighs, her grin falling, and pulls out her History textbook. "She just said to pick a chapter," she says, glancing at Nino for confirmation. Flipping through the table of contents, Alya suddenly grins again, wider this time. "Hey, Nino, let's do Ancient Egypt so we can find more evidence of Ladybug being around back then!" 

Marinette coughs, almost choking on her drink, and Adrien jumps, surprised. "You alright?!" 

"I'm fine!" Marinette coughs. "Tried to breathe water." 

Adrien smiles at that, patting her back and waiting for her to start breathing normally again before he asks, "Wanna switch seats with Nino so we can figure out a topic too?" 

Marinette glances at Nino, who shrugs and stands up, and then nods carefully, pointedly ignoring the victorious smirk Alya shoots her as she switches seats. 

* 

It isn't until she gets home that afternoon that she realizes she'd spent over an hour talking to Adrien about their project and she hadn't made a complete fool of herself. 

"You did so well!" Tikki exclaims as she flies out of Marinette's bag. 

Marinette collapses down onto her chaise. "I didn't even really think about it," she admits. "I mean. I knew I was talking to Adrien, but it didn't feel like..." She glances over at her computer, where her desktop is still a picture of the model. "It didn't feel the same." 

She'd taken down most of the pictures she had up around the room already – but that was more out of necessity. When Alya was the only one occasionally invading her bedroom it was one thing, but with Chat Noir appearing every Friday and occasionally during the week when he could get away – Marinette wasn't _that_ confident. She just didn't know when she'd stopped wanting to put them back _up_. 

"That's good though, isn't it?" Tikki asks, flying over to land on Marinette's knees. "That you're more comfortable around him?" 

Marinette frowns. "I guess... But it's not like I've spent any time with Adrien lately besides in class, so why so suddenly?" 

Tikki smiles at her. "Well, who _have_ you been spending time with?" 

Marinette blinks. "Chat, mostly." 

Tikki nudges her lightly. "And?" 

"And what?" Marinette asks. "He's my friend, and my partner – why would that..." Oh. "Tikki, no, I do _not_ have feelings for Chat Noir, we've been over this!" 

"But your crush on Adrien's gone!" Tikki protests. "That says _something_!" 

"Not that it's shifted to Chat!" Marinette protests. "I'm not a stumbling mess around Chat!" And I don't want to _become_ one, she doesn't add. 

"Because you're not intimidated by Chat," Tikki assures. "But that doesn't mean you don't like him." 

"Of course I _like_ him, but I don't..." She cuts herself off. "I _don't_ have feelings for him." 

"Do you like hanging out with him?" Tikki asks, stubbornly refusing to budge. 

"Of course I do." Marinette crosses her arms just as stubbornly. "That doesn't mean anything – I like hanging out with Alya and Nino too, and I don't have feelings for either of them." 

"Are either of them invited to Sunday night dinners?" Tikki asks. 

"That was my mom's choice!" Marinette protests. 

"Do you have a weekly movie night with Nino or Alya?" Tikki continues. 

"I would, if they wanted to!" Marinette insists. 

Tikki goes to speak up again, but she's cut off by a knock on the trap door entrance to her room. "Marinette, sweetheart, is everything okay?" 

Tikki dives into Marinette's jacket to hide as the trap door opens. "Everything's fine, maman!" Marinette insists. "Just... chatting with Alya!" She grabs her phone. "Sorry if we got too loud." 

Sabine smiles knowingly, but changes the subject. "I've made some snacks for you and Chat Noir for tonight – I'll leave them in the kitchen for you." 

"Thank you, maman." Marinette smiles, trying not to think about what her mother probably heard on her way up the stairs.  

Sabine smiles again and slips back out, shutting the trap door behind her. Marinette sags back into the chaise as Tikki pops out of her jacket. 

"You have feelings for Chat Noir," Tikki says without preamble, flying over to her cookie stash for a snack. 

"Tikki!" Marinette protests over the kwami's laughter. 

* 

Tikki doesn't drop the subject, speaking up every few minutes to remind Marinette of her (completely non-existent) feelings for her partner, which ensures that when Chat Noir lets himself in later that evening, those (non-existent) feelings are all she can think about. 

"Are you okay?" Chat asks as he shuts the window behind himself, frowning at her. "You jumped." 

"Just jumpy," Marinette lies and changes the subject quickly. "My mom made us snacks." 

Chat's face lights up like a kid on Christmas and he all but dives at the plate Mari had brought out from the kitchen earlier. Marinette can't help but giggle, mumbling, "Oh, kitty." 

He turns to her with a grin. "So, what are we watching tonight?" 

Marinette smiles again and crosses over to where she'd tossed a couple of DVDs from her collection. This is normal, this is comfortable. It doesn't mean anything beyond a couple of friends hanging out and watching movies. 

It doesn't mean anything, she tells herself when he shifts closer to her on the couch so they can share a blanket. 

It doesn't mean anything, she tells herself as she leans against Chat and he settles his arm around her. 

It doesn't mean anything, she tells herself when the credits for the second movie roll and neither of them move. 

It doesn’t _mean_ anything. 

"Did you want to watch another?" Marinette finally asks, breaking the silence that had fallen once the movie credits had finished rolling. 

Chat hesitates, but finally moves his arm, shaking his head. "I'd love to, but I should get going," he admits. "I have a," he pauses briefly, " _thing_ tomorrow morning." 

Marinette quirks a smile at that. "A thing?" 

Chat laughs. "Can't be too s- _paw_ -cific, right?" He sighs, shifting so he can see her better and pointedly ignoring the disdainful look she shoots him over the pun. "Sorry, I _would_ tell you, but--" 

Marinette cuts him off, "No, no – I understand." She smiles reassuringly. 

"I trust you, princess," Chat says. "And as soon as I can tell you, I will. You know that. But I should tell Ladybug first. I owe her that." 

Marinette swallows the small pit of guilt that tries to form and smiles at him instead. "I know." 

Chat smiles and stands up, stretching. "Tell your mom thanks for the snacks?" 

"Will do," Marinette promises, standing up as well. "See you Sunday?" 

"See you." Chat nods. He opens the window, waves one more time, and then he's gone. 

_Well_ , Marinette thinks as she shuts the window behind him. She has feelings for Chat Noir. _Shit_. 

* 

"Marinette!" Alya's voice calls from the living room early the next morning, and Marinette groans, rolling over in her bed and trying to block out the sound. "C'mon, girl, wake up!"  

Marinette had been up until the sun had started to rise, tossing and turning in bed, consumed by racing thoughts until she'd finally succumbed to exhaustion. The nothing that she'd insisted her relationship with Chat meant had suddenly become so much more than nothing and she doesn't know how to handle it.  

Should she tell him? No, she can't do that – Chat is a _superhero_ and sure, so's Marinette, but _Chat_ doesn't know that and if Marinette has her way, he won't for a very, very long time. 

"Marinette!" Alya throws herself on top of Marinette's curled form. "Come on, wake up!" 

Oh right, Alya's here. Marinette groans, rolling over and shoots Alya an unamused look. "Why're you here so early?" 

"It's almost noon," Alya insists, and a glance up at the skylight proves that the sun is, in fact, high in the sky. Guess that's what staying up until sunrise does to someone. "Come on, I have news!" 

Marinette forces herself to sit up, yawning. "What news?" 

Alya shifts over to give Marinette room. "Guess who's doing another photoshoot in the park?" 

Well, there's only one person Marinette knows that does photoshoots in the park. "Adrien?" She guesses, stifling a second yawn.  

Alya grins, but it falters quickly. "Wait, you don't look excited at all. A week ago that would have woken you _right_ up." 

Marinette sighs, flopping backwards so she's laying sideways across her bed. "I don't know, Alya... I..." 

"Your crush is gone," Alya realizes. "You don't have a crush on Adrien anymore? Why didn't you _say_ anything? I _thought_ you were more coherant than usual yesterday!" 

Marinette groans. "I only realized it yesterday," she promises. "I don't know, I... didn't even realize." 

"What happened?" Alya asks, curling her legs up underneath her and keeping an eye on Marinette to make sure she doesn’t fall back to sleep. "You took down the pictures and everything." 

"Oh, that's because of Chat," Marinette says without really thinking about it, and Alya's eyes immediately narrow. 

"Wait, what about Chat?" Alya asked. "Chat _Noir_?" 

Marinette stiffens. Shit. 

"What about Chat Noir, Mari?" Alya asks, leaning forward. 

"N-nothing!" Marinette insists, jumping up. "Nothing at all!" 

Thankfully, Alya's mind jumps in the opposite direction. "Do you have feelings for a superhero, Mari?" She teases. 

Marinette jumps past Alya, climbing down the ladder from the loft in two bounds, "I don't know what you're talking about!" 

"You do!" Alya grins, chasing her. "That's why you don't like Adrien anymore, you're in love with Chat Noir!" 

"It's not like that!" Marinette insists. "He just comes over for dinner sometimes, it doesn't mean anything!" Even though it definitely probably means something, as she's realizing, she doesn't need to tell Alya that, and wait, why is Alya being so quiet? She turns, frowning, and finds Alya staring her down. "What?" 

"He comes over for _dinner_ sometimes?" Alya echoes. 

Shit. Marinette shouldn't have mentioned that. "Uh..." Eloquent, Mari. 

"How long has _Chat Noir_ been coming over for dinner, Mari?" Alya asks, stepping towards her. Marinette takes a step backwards, towards the bathroom. 

"I..." Marinette hesitates. What is she even supposed to tell Alya? The truth? She can't tell Alya that Chat's been coming over for months, at least twice a week!  

"Mariiiii," Alya warns.  

"I... I mean, he's been over a few times!" Marinette squeaks, not technically lying. 

"Marinette Dupain-Cheng," Alya growls, and shuts the bathroom door in Marinette's face. 

Marinette blinks – when had she backed into the bathroom – and tries the door handle. It turns, but the door doesn't push open. "Alya?" 

"You can stay in there until you tell me what I want to know, _Inmate_ ," Alya teases. "How long has Chat Noir been coming over for dinner and why didn't you _tell_ me?" 

Marinette sighs, leaning her head against the bathroom door. When in doubt, honesty is the best policy, she supposes. As long as she's careful with her words, hopefully she can keep from dropping any _more_ secrets. "A couple of months," she finally says. "On Sundays." 

Alya's silent for a second. "He comes on _Sundays_?" 

"Yeah." Marinette sighs. "He was injured a few months ago and I found him and brought him to my mom and she invited him to stay for dinner and it was Sunday and I don't know, I asked him to come back," she blurts. "And then we started watching movies together on Fridays and he's basically part of the family and I realized yesterday that my crush on Adrien is just completely gone and T-" she cuts herself off before she can reveal _another_ thing she's trying to keep secret. "And _Maman_ keeps insisting that I have feelings for Chat Noir and I kept saying she was wrong but I think she might be wrong and I can't have feelings for a superhero, Alya, what do I do?" She takes a deep breath, waiting for Alya to answer, but she's silent. 

Finally, the bathroom door opens, and Alya flies in, hugging Marinette tight. "You know exactly what you have to do, Marinette." 

Marinette startles. "Wait, what?" 

"You have to _woo_ him!" Alya grins. "He already comes over for dinner and apparently _movie dates –_ you just have to show him that you like him!" 

Marinette relaxes. "I thought you were going to ask me to get you an interview or something," she admits. 

Alya smacks her lightly. "This is about so much more than the _Ladyblog_ , Marinette." 

Marinette smiles at that, relieved.  

"Is that why you didn't say something earlier?" Alya asks, stepping back a bit to give Marinette some room. "Because of the Ladyblog?" 

"Well, how _would_ you have reacted if you'd seen Chat hanging out in the living room?" Marinette asks. 

Alya frowns. "Okay, good point," she acquiesces. "But I know now and that means I can help you." She nods, determined. "First things first, when are you seeing him next, Sunday?" 

"Probably," Marinette nods. "He mentioned he was busy today, so I don't think he'll drop by." 

Alya nods again. "Perfect. We'll get you all fancied up before dinner on Sunday and that cat won't know what _hit_ him when he sees you." 

"Alya, nooooo," Marinette whines. "It's just family dinner, my parents will comment on it, and--" she cuts herself off. "Besides, he's _Chat Noir_." 

"Yeah, and?" Alya turns back to her. 

"He's a superhero, and I'm just..." She cuts herself off. "He doesn't have feelings for me, and why _would_ he?"  

"Marinette." Alya walks over, putting her hands on her shoulders. "Underneath that Chat Noir mask is a regular person," she says, sternly. "He might be a superhero with the mask on, but  he's still a person, and so are you. You're no different." 

"Alya--" 

Alya cuts Marinette off before she can finish her sentence. "No. Look, even if you _are_ right - which you're absolutely _not_ , by the way -  what do you have to lose for trying?" 

Marinette hesitates, but Alya doesn't budge, and so she sighs. "Nothing, I guess, except my pride." 

Alya grins. "That's the spirit! Now come on, let's see what cute clothes you have. You should wear cat ears or something, that'll definitely catch his attention." 

Marinette turns bright red almost immediately. "Alya, no! And no leather!" 

Alya laughs. "Hey, _you_ suggested it!" 

"Alya, no!" 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two updates in a week to make up for the long wait on the last one! (And not at all because I want to get to the sad stuff, honestly.) Enjoy the peace while it lasts, Mari.... <3 
> 
> Also, if you didn't already know, Alya's US voice actor also voices a _certain_ pair of characters from Persona 5. So, I had to.


	7. Chapter 7

Marinette is starting to rethink the theory that being Ladybug has brought her any ounce of good luck. What had started as a simple, Saturday afternoon shopping trip has turned into a hostage situation, and Marinette can't see any way out. 

The akuma's a woman – less imposing than the tree akuma from the week before, but more menacing somehow – with gorgon-style snakes for hair whose venom seem to cause numbness and weakness, but instead of her gaze turning others to stone, it makes you _talk_. 

And she's staring Alya right in the eyes, while Marinette struggles against the weakness in both her arms from a snake that decided she got too close. 

"You," the akuma says thoughtfully, keeping one snake trained on Marinette, ready to bite again if need be. "You run the Ladyblog, don't you?" 

"Yes," Alya answers without hesitation. 

The akumatized woman smirks. "Perfect. Tell me how I can locate Ladybug and Chat Noir." 

Marinette flinches. If anyone knows _anything_ about them, it would be Alya, but-- 

Alya's gaze stays even. "I don't know who they are." 

She growls. "Surely you must know _something_ about them that will help me draw them out." 

Marinette's eyes widen as Alya's gaze flicks over to her and seems almost apologetic for a second, almost like she's fighting back, but the words come spilling out. "I do know something." 

Marinette surges forward and gets a snake bite in the shoulder for her effort, wincing and dropping to her knees. "A-Alya, no..." 

"Tell me, Alya," The akuma coos, a smirk growing on her face. 

Alya does. "Take Marinette," she says, pointing at the quickly weakening girl. "Chat Noir hangs out with her, he'll come after her." 

The gorgon turns towards Marinette now, who drops her gaze so she doesn't get locked in – not difficult considering her vision is swimming as the snake venom circulates in her system. "Perfect." 

Three more snakes rush at Marinette and bite her, and the world goes black for the second time in a week. 

* 

When Alya comes back to herself, she's standing on an empty street and Marinette is nowhere to be found. It takes her a minute to sort through what just happened – an akuma attacked, Alya had tried to run towards the chaos, Marinette had tried to run away, but before either of them had a chance, the akuma, some sort of Medusa knockoff, was there in front of them. 

And Alya had _turned her best friend into bait_. 

Exhaling sharply, Alya clenches her hands and stands there for only a second before she grabs her phone and starts searching through Ladyblog tips – she has to find Chat Noir and she has to find him fast, has to tell him it's a trap. 

Finally spotting a tip about the black-clad superhero being spotted not too far away, Alya grabs her bag, keeps her phone out and on, and takes off running as fast as her legs will carry her. 

* 

Chat Noir is calling Ladybug's burner phone for the fourth time when he hears someone calling out to him from the street below, and he pokes his head over the edge of the roof he's standing on to see Alya – _crap,_ he doesn't have time to give her an interview for the Ladyblog right now-- 

"The akuma has Marinette!" 

Chat freezes. There's no way he heard what he just heard, right? Marinette wouldn't have done something as dumb as getting herself captured by an akuma, _right_? 

He swings off the roof and lands in front of Alya. "What did you just say?" 

Alya's breathing heavily, but she manages to choke out, "The akuma has Marinette – she's using her as bait to get to _you_." She takes a deep breath before continuing. "She's some kind of gorgon – a Medusa impersonator – and she used her snakes to knock Mari out... It's a trap to get to you, Chat Noir." 

A trap he's about to fall for completely willingly because _hell_ if he's going to let Marinette stay in the clutches of an akuma.  

"Noted. Now get out of here," Chat orders, extending his baton and heading towards where the akuma had been last spotted, dialing Ladybug's burner phone for a fifth time. 

No answer. 

* 

He finds the akuma in a warehouse on the east side of town, tucked into a back storage room, alone besides the hair-snakes keeping watch and the unconscious girl behind her  Chat ducks behind a window as soon as he spots Marinette, breathing but still out, and manages to hide before the nearby watch-snake can find him.      

He's not expecting much – if she hasn't picked up yet, why would she pick up now – but he tries Ladybug one last time, and sure enough.... Goddamnit Ladybug.       
He can't wait for her to show up, he has to do something now, but he can't purify this akuma on his own.     

Okay. Okay, first step, get Marinette out. Worry about purifying the akuma once she's safe. Just get in, get Marinette, and get out. It'll be easy.   

It isn't easy. He gets halfway into the room before the snakes spot him and he has to duck out of the way, knocking aside a snake with his staff and diving behind a crate. He wishes he could just dive in and grab his unconscious friend, but the minute she spotted him, the akuma trained two snakes on her, ready to bite.     

"Here, kitty kitty. Wouldn't want anything bad to happen to your little _girlfriend_ , now would you?"     

Shaking a little, Chat takes a deep breath, trying to think through a plan. If he can get past the snakes fast enough, he might be able to cataclysm the floor underneath the akuma's feet – at least that would get her out of the way, but... no, she's standing too close to Marinette, and he can't risk sending her tumbling too.     

"She's already got so much snake venom in those poor veins of hers. I'd hate to see what would happen if my snakes were to bite her again," the akuma coos.     

The snake venom! Nodding to himself, he grips his staff tight and dives out from behind the crate, knocking away the first snake that dives at him and tossing his staff aside in the process, grabbing the next two snakes to lunge towards him and turning them on their master. The Medusa knockoff raises her arms in alarm, protecting her face on instinct, and Chat's able to successfully force the snakes in his hands to bite her. For all he knows, Medusa's immune to her own snakes' venom, but if nothing else, the surprise should give him the split second he needs to grab Marinette and run.     

Letting go as soon as the snakes are latched on, he dives at Marinette, scoops her up, and he runs, barely slowing down to grab his staff on his way out of the warehouse.     

*   

He doesn't stop until they're halfway across town, laying Marinette carefully down on a rooftop so she can rest until she's conscious again. Only then, once she's safely resting _far_ away from the akuma, does he allow himself to relax, plopping down onto the roof near her and trying to breathe. He stays still for a minute, watching the even rise and fall of Marinette's chest and reassuring himself that he _didn't_ get her killed (this time) for almost a full minute before he grabs his staff. His partner is still MIA, and now that Marinette is safe, he can refocus on getting in touch with her so that they can actually _do something_ about the akuma who hurt her.   

He flips up the staff to call her, hoping that by some miracle, she's transformed, but no, he gets no signal. Tossing his phone aside, he grabs his burner phone, standing up and pacing the roof  as he dials and listens to the same shrill ringing he's been hearing all day. No answer. He dials again. Still no answer.     

"God damn it, Ladybug," he growls, eyes falling on Marinette's unconscious form as his pacing slows. What the hell is he supposed to do if he can't get in touch with Ladybug?   

Tearing his eyes from Marinette, he whirls around around as he dials once more. "This is why we got the burner phones in the first place!" he snaps in a voicemail, regretting it as soon as he hangs up.   

He knows he's unreasonably angry, but he's worried and concerned - it isn't like Ladybug to not answer, and it's even _less_ like Ladybug to be this late to an akuma attack. Even on days when he _knows_ that she's occupied with something, she shows up, or she at least _picks_ up. She could be hurt, she could--   

He dials again, pacing back full force, but stops as he hears a buzzing sound fill the otherwise silent air. Pulling his still ringing phone away from his ear, he listens closer, following the noise to Marinette's purse.   

_Shit_ , Sabine is probably trying to find her daughter... he needs to call and let her know that she's safe. He hangs up his (useless) call to Ladybug and is about to dial Sabine and give her an edited version of what happened when he realizes that the buzzing stopped as soon as he'd cancelled his call.     

It's... a coincidence. It has to be.     

He calls Ladybug again, instead of Sabine, and Marinette's purse starts buzzing again right away.   

No. There's no way.   

He surges forward, popping the small bag open, and his racing thoughts grind to an immediate halt as out tumbles the thin, unassuming burner phone he'd handed Ladybug a few weeks earlier, along with a red and black-spotted, incredibly worried kwami, who sends him the most apologetic look he's ever seen.    

"Chat Noir--" the kwami tries, but Chat puts the purse and the phone down calmly, stands up, and whirls around so he isn't looking at Marinette.   

At Ladybug?    

Marinette is Ladybug?    

He should be _happy_ about this. He’d been feeling guilty lately about spending so much time with Marinette and less time with Ladybug, and it turns out he'd been spending time with Ladybug after all – that's a good thing, _right_? Marinette being Ladybug is a good thing.   

But there's a pit in his stomach that's only growing, and when he finally turns back around and compares Ladybug to Marinette, turns around and spies the kwami resting on her shoulder and frowning, everything clicks into place.    

Marinette is Ladybug. Ladybug is Marinette.   

The pit in his chest grows.    

"Chat Noir?" The kwami asks, flying up to him.    

"Is she okay?" he manages, tearing his eyes from Marinette to look at the kwami, who nods.    

"The venom is working its way out of her system. She should wake up soon." The kwami pauses, hesitating. "I'm Tikki."    

Chat Noir nods and turns around so he doesn't need to look at Marinette or Tikki anymore, walking over to the edge of the roof and sitting down. He'll keep an eye out for the akuma. He just needs to focus on that, and not on-- Tikki flies up behind him, landing softly on his shoulder.    

"She didn't mean to upset you," Tikki says softly. "She was just trying to keep--"    

Chat cuts Tikki off, more harshly than he intends to. "She can tell me when she wakes up."    

Tikki hesitates, but finally nods, flying back over to Marinette and settling down on her stomach.    

Chat doesn't look in their direction again.   

*   

Marinette wakes up slowly, with sludge in her veins. She feels the ground first - she's laying on a hard surface, probably outside - and then she starts to register a voice calling her name.   

She finally blinks her eyes open after what feels like hours, but is probably only a few minutes, to see Tikki's relieved face.   

"Oh, Marinette, you scared me!" the kwami cries, nestling into Marinette's neck.   

Marinette startles, but she can't seem to move her arms yet, so she settles for attempting to speak. "W'happened?"   

"The akuma took you."   

It takes great effort but Marinette manages to turn her head, eyes falling on Chat Noir standing a few feet away, stubbornly not looking at her.   

Marinette smiles, but the light pressure of Tikki at her neck makes everything come to her at once. If Chat Noir saw Tikki, then...   

"Chat?" Marinette mumbles. "Tikki."   

"Sorry, LB," Chat says, eyes trained on the skyline past her.   

Had Marinette had any strength in her limbs, it would have all rushed out of her at once, but she doesn't, and all that escapes is a startled gasp.   

He knows. Chat Noir knows and he won't look at her.   

He's disappointed. Of course he's disappointed.   

"Chat, I--"   

Chat cuts her off. "Save your strength. We can talk after. Rest so we can take care of this akuma."   

"But--" Marinette hesitates.   

"We need to concentrate on the fight, Marinette, and if we talk now, I don't think either of us will be able to." Chat says, turning to the edge of the roof without another word.  

He's not just upset, he's almost _angry_. Marinette exhales shakily and lets her head rest back on the rooftop to stare at the evening sky. Finally, after a few minutes of silence, she speaks softly. "Chat, my parents..."   

"I called," he answers. "Said you were with me when the akuma attacked and that I dropped you off at Alya's."   

Marinette swallows. "Thank you."   

Chat doesn't answer, and awkward silence falls again.  

*  

It takes almost a half hour for Marinette feel comfortable enough to call on her transformation, but once Tikki’s power floods her body, the rest of the venom the akuma pumped into her fades quickly, and less than an hour after waking up, she and the still-silent Chat Noir are back on the rooftops, escaping the scene of a finished battle. The battle itself went _fine_ , but there were no ridiculous puns being thrown her way, no teasing banter between them, no fist bump once the akuma was purified. 

Ladybug narrowly stops Chat from fleeing, grabbing his arm. "No – we need to talk." 

"Ladybug--" Chat hesitates, but Ladybug shakes her head.  

"You're upset with me, and I understand that, so we need to talk about this." Ladybug insists. "Come on." 

They take off without waiting for the press to get there and spot them, ducking back into the warehouse where Medusa had held Marinette captive and stopping once far enough inside that they're sure they won't be seen. 

"I'm sorry," Ladybug says quickly, wringing her hands. "It's just so _d_ _angerous_ for us to know each others' identities – I didn't want to put anyone at risk." 

Chat swallows, turning to her. "I was already hanging out at your house, with your family – someone could have just as easily followed me there." 

"I knew you'd be careful," Ladybug mumbles, wrapping her arms around herself. "I knew you wouldn't hurt my family on purpose." 

"Then why didn't you _trust_  me?" Chat snaps. "Marinette, we've been having movie nights for _months_ , I've told you I'd tell you who I was in a heartbeat if you'd let me, so why don't you trust me enough?" 

"It's not a matter of trust!" Ladybug insists, hearing the beeping of her earrings but ignoring it – Chat already knows anyway. "Of _course_  I trust you!" 

"With everything except this?" Chat asks. " _Hell_ , Mari, I was about to--" he cuts off sharply, and Marinette feels a pang in her chest when he turns away from her.  

"Chat... I trust you. It's everyone _else_ that worries me; it's Hawk Moth that worries me. The akuma tonight, she--" 

Chat cuts Ladybug off before she can finish her sentence, turning to look over his shoulder at her. "Just answer one question." 

Ladybug nods, silent besides the one minute warning beep of her earrings. 

" _When_ were you going to tell me?" 

Ladybug hesitates, squeezes her eyes shut so she doesn't have to look at him, at her brokenhearted partner, and tells the truth. "I wasn't." 

Chat falls completely silent, and Ladybug peeks an eye open cautiously, just in time to catch a glimpse of the most _h_ _u_ _r_ _t_ look she has ever seen on Chat Noir's face – the look that proves to her that she's just broken her partner's trust, maybe forever. 

And she knows she deserves it. 

Chat Noir turns and leaves without a word, and Ladybug can't bring herself to even try and stop him this time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry.
> 
> Also, it didn't fit into the scene, but we (Eriyu and I) have dubbed this akuma "Me-truth-a." So, enjoy that pun.
> 
> ...Sorry.


	8. Chapter 8

Marinette spends the rest of Saturday night in her room, pretending she doesn't hear her parents moving around downstairs, pretending they don't know that she's up there and ignoring them, pretending there's even a remote chance Chat will show up for dinner the next day pretending everything is fine. 

But he doesn't. 

He misses dinner for the first time since he'd started coming to the bakery back in February, and the disappointed look on her mother's face just about kills her, especially since it's directed right _at_ her. 

Her maman has no way of knowing what happened, but she knows it's Marinette's fault somehow. ("He's family, Mari. Whatever argument you had, remember that. I love you, but you can be stubborn. Apologize to him.") 

She isn't ready to do that, not yet. Not that she could if she _was_ \- he didn't come to dinner, so who knew when she'd see him next. Would he come to patrol on Wednesday? The next akuma attack? 

He wouldn't give up Chat Noir because of this, would he? No, no – he couldn't, he'd told her how much Chat meant to him.  

He told her a lot, actually. He would have told her everything. ( _"_ _But I should tell_ _Ladybug_ _first. I owe her that_ _."_ ) 

God, she's the _worst_ partner ever. 

* 

Adrien's barely taken two steps into the classroom on Monday morning when Nino waves him over to Mme. Bustier's desk with a grimace on his face. 

"Ah, Adrien," their teacher says with a relieved smile. "Nino was just telling me who he'd picked for a partner." 

Nino sighs. "We do good work together!" He insists, but Mme. Bustier just shoots him a look. 

Adrien frowns. "Is something wrong with Nino and Alya working together?" He asks, not adding the silent, ' _and what does this have to do with_ _me?_ _'_ that lingers in the back of his mind. 

"They have a tendency to _not work_ when they're paired together," Mme Bustier explains. "I'm not sure I saw them working _once_ during the last project they were paired together for." 

"We got a B on that project," Nino protests. 

Mme Bustier sighs. "Regardless, I'll have to insist you pair up with someone else." 

Adrien catches Marinette stepping into the room, a frown on her face, and remembers sharply – _crap,_ he's paired up with her for this project. Before he even registers what he's saying, he's speaking up, offering, "I'll work with Nino." 

Mme Bustier smiles. "You've worked with Nino for three projects already this year, Adrien. How do you feel about switching partners with Nino? He'll work with your partner, and you'll work with Alya." 

Adrien glances at Nino, who shrugs, defeated. "Fine, Marinette's cool." 

Well, it got him out of working with Marinette either way. Adrien nods. "Sure, I'll work with Alya." 

"Great," Mme Bustier smiles. "Go ahead and sit, then. Thank you for being accommodating." 

Nino huffs out a sigh but offers Adrien a thankful glance – at least he didn't end up paired with someone random – as he sits down next to a thoroughly confused Marinette. 

* 

It's almost a relief when Nino explains what's happening. Seeing Adrien that morning had just been a reminder that her crush on him had gone away because of her newfound crush on Chat – a fact that was not even worth _debating_ with herself anymore – and Nino provides a thankful distraction from the entire mess. 

Not that she can forget it. The hurt look on Chat's face as soon as she'd admitted that she had no intentions of telling him the truth won't leave her head, and every time she shuts her eyes, he's all she can see. She needs to find some way to apologize, needs to do something to make up for it – but _what?_  

"You okay?" Nino asks softly, leaning over while Mme Bustier is turned the other way. 

Marinette startles, surprised, but nods quickly, forcing something resembling a smile onto her face and focuses back in on attempting to listen to their teacher. 

Her distraction doesn't escape Alya, who grabs her as soon as lunch break starts and drags her straight to the bakery to talk. 

"Well, what happened?" She demands as soon as they're in private, not even upstairs yet. 

Marinette shivers. "I don't really want to talk about it, Alya," she insists.  

"You get rescued by Chat Noir, the superhero you have a crush on, and then you come into school looking like someone ran over your cat." She pauses. "Either the superhero or a literal one. You can't tell me nothing happened." 

Marinette shakes her head, unlocking and pushing open the door to the living room upstairs. "I didn't say nothing happened, I said I didn't want to talk about it." 

Alya frowns. "Did you get into a fight or something?" 

Marinette flinches. 

"Oh, Mari..." Alya sighs. "You'll get through it – couples fight all the time." 

"We aren't a couple!" Marinette finally snaps. "And the way things are going we're not likely to ever be one." She deflates, wringing her hands and looking anywhere but at Alya. 

Alya sighs again. "Come on, let's get ice cream for lunch." 

Marinette glances up. "I thought you wanted to eat here." 

"I did until I realized how upset you were. This calls for ice cream, and a lot of it." Alya smiles reassuringly at her. "Come on, we should have enough time to make it your favorite place, and I promise not to push you on the whole Chat thing until you're feeling better." 

Marinette manages a small smile in return. "Alright. Thanks, Alya." 

* 

Adrien manages to make it through the day without dwelling too much on the girl sitting behind him in class, somehow. Between listening to the teacher and passing stupid notes with Alya, who seems to want distracting as much as he does based on her angry doodles, he manages to keep himself occupied and not thinking about it.  

He's home now, laying across his couch and staring at the ceiling, bored out of his mind for once – the photoshoot he'd had that afternoon had gotten cancelled for one reason or another, Adrien hadn't really been listening when Nathalie had explained. Two days ago, had he suddenly had an afternoon off, he'd have been out the door and halfway to the bakery by now. 

But today...  

He groans, rolling over onto his side. Just the thought of the bakery is making him feel a little sick. The worst part is that everything makes so much _sense_ now. Where was Ladybug when he'd been injured? Not off getting a splint, like she'd claimed, but risking her secret identity to drag him home with her. She couldn't have known then that he'd be invited back. She couldn't have known how attached to the Dupain-Chengs he'd get, how much Sunday night dinners would mean to him.    

She couldn't have known then, but she _knows_ _now_. He'd told her, and she... ( _"When were you going to tell_ _me_ _?" "I wasn't."_ )    

He _does_ trust Ladybug. He trusts her even more now, knowing that she's been Marinette the whole time.    

He trusts her, but he can't shake this feeling, this... was it _his_ fault because he didn't see it? Was it hers for never planning to tell him? Both of theirs for being stupid and getting attached in the first place?   

He needs to stop thinking about this. He grabs for his cell phone – maybe Nino's free, he could sneak out and see if he could swing by there; no one is likely to bother him for a few hours at least – and dials before he even really thinks it through. 

_"Hey,_ _Adrien_ _,_ " Nino greets when he picks up. " _Everything alright?"_  

"Yeah, just driving myself crazy, needed a friendly voice. What's going on?" Adrien asks, rolling back to stare at the ceiling. 

_"Oh, just at Marinette's – we were working_ _on our project and her mom insisted I stay for dinner,_ " Nino answered. 

Adrien ignores the pang in his chest at that - so much for not thinking about it. "Oh – I can let you go, sorry--" 

Nino cuts him off, _"Nah, Marinette's helping M_ _me_ _. C cook right now, and M_ _me_ _. C has that thing about people helping her in the kitchen, so I'm just chilling in Marinette's room._ _"_  

Adrien pauses. "What thing about people helping her in the kitchen?" 

_"_ _O_ _h_ _,_ _s_ _h_ _e_ _d_ _o_ _e_ _s_ _n_ _'_ _t_ _l_ _e_ _t_ _a_ _n_ _y_ _o_ _n_ _e_ _b_ _u_ _t_ _f_ _a_ _m_ _i_ _l_ _y_ _h_ _e_ _l_ _p_ _h_ _e_ _r_ _c_ _o_ _o_ _k_ _,_ _"_ Nino answers easily. _"_ _A_ _f_ _a_ _m_ _i_ _l_ _y_ _t_ _r_ _a_ _d_ _i_ _t_ _i_ _o_ _n_ _,_ _o_ _r_ _s_ _o_ _m_ _e_ _t_ _h_ _i_ _n_ _g_ _,_ _I_ _g_ _u_ _e_ _s_ _s_ _._ _A_ _n_ _y_ _w_ _a_ _y_ _,_ _A_ _l_ _y_ _a_ _a_ _n_ _d_ _I_ _a_ _r_ _e_ _n_ _'_ _t_ _a_ _l_ _l_ _o_ _w_ _e_ _d_ _t_ _o_ _l_ _i_ _f_ _t_ _a_ _f_ _i_ _n_ _g_ _e_ _r_ _w_ _h_ _i_ _l_ _e_ _w_ _e_ _'_ _r_ _e_ _h_ _er_ _e_ _._ _"_ Nino laughs. _"Probably better, since I can burn_ water _, but..."_  

Adrien pauses. He sits up, stares at the window for a second, and lets that sentence sink in. 

No one but family. 

Sabine had let Chat Noir help her cook the _first_ Sunday he'd spent there, before he even really _knew_ them. She'd let him help every Sunday after too, no hesitation or complaints. 

( _"_ _Are you making Chat help you cook?_ _"_ Adrien remembers the surprise in Marinette's voice. Now he knows why.) 

Sabine considers him family – had considered him family all the way back in February when he'd shown up to thank them for their help with his injuries. 

Sure, Adrien had considered them family this whole time, but he'd never even _considered_ the idea that it was reciprocated. People don't just accept random strangers – even superheroes – into their families on a whim, whether that superhero has gotten overly attached or not. 

Sabine, and Tom, and _Marinette_ consider him _family_. 

Shit. 

_"_ _Adrien_ _, hey, you okay?"_ Nino's voice cuts through his spiraling thoughts. 

"Yeah, I – sorry, I have to go." Adrien hangs up his phone before Nino can respond – he'll apologize later. 

"Adrien?" Plagg flies over, landing on Adrien's shoulder as Adrien buries his head in his hands. 

( _"_ _I couldn't do that."_  

_Chat's grin falters. "Do what?"_  

_"Tell my family," she says, resting her chin on her knees. "I'd do anything t_ _o_ _keep them safe, and if they knew, they'd worry. They'd put themselves at risk to make sure I'm safe, and_ _they'd_ _be at risk if anything ever happened to me."_  

_Chat hesitates, before prodding softly, "But what if something does happen to you?"_ 

_Ladybug pauses. "This is going to sound awful, but... I'd rather they find out I'm Ladybug because I don't come home one day than worry about that exact thing happening_ _every_ _time I go out."_ ) 

"Plagg..." Adrien mumbles into his hands. "I made a huge mistake." 

* 

Nino knocks into Marinette lightly as they make their way down towards the library later that evening, offering a smile. "Y'know, whatever's bothering you, you _can_ talk about it." 

Marinette offers a small smile. "I appreciate that, but it's not that simple." 

"Try me." Nino says. "You know I'm a good listener." 

Marinette hesitates, but finally acquiesces. She's feeling a little more open to talking than when Alya had dragged her off earlier, and Nino... well. Like he said, he's a good listener. "I don't know how much you heard from Alya about..." She pauses. "Our Sunday night dinner guest?" she finally settles on, glancing back over at Nino, who's grinning. 

"You mean your bff Chat Noir?" Nino teases. 

Marinette rolls her eyes and shoves him lightly, before the pang in her chest comes back. "Well. Probably not anymore." 

Nino softens. "What happened?" 

"I screwed up." Marinette breathes. "I screwed up really badly and I don't know how to fix it." She exhales shakily. "I have to apologize, of course, but no apology will mean anything unless he forgives me, and I... don't think he will." 

"I doubt that," Nino cuts in. "Look, I don't know Chat Noir, but he seems like a reasonable guy, and anyone your mother invites to dinner _has_ to be decent." He smiles. "He might be mad right now, but if you talk to him, honestly apologize, he'll know you're sincere." 

Marinette curls her arms around herself. "That's the thing... I do feel awful and I know I _should_ have done something different, but..." 

"But?" Nino prods. 

"If I went back in time, I would have done it all the same," Marinette admits in a soft voice. "Because I stand by why I made the decisions I made." 

Nino squeezes her shoulder. 

"Chat and I are _different_ , and I _understand_ why he feels the way he does, but I... _don't_." She sighs. "I know he doesn't understand why I kept things from him and I don't think our relationship will ever be the same now that they're out in the open." 

"Not because of the secret," Nino guesses. "But because you kept it." 

"Because I'd keep it again." Marinette nods, shivering. "And I don't think he'll forgive me for that." 

"You should give him a chance, though." Nino suggests. "You never know. Maybe he'll see your side of it too." 

* 

Chat waits until he sees Nino and Marinette leave the bakery before he slips down to the back door and lets himself in. Once he reaches the door that leads into the living room, though, he hesitates, unsure if he's still welcome. He'd upset Marinette, and as much as Sabine and Tom may have considered him family, Marinette is their _actual_ child. 

He tries to ignore the nerves creeping up his spine and forces himself to knock. 

The door opens a moment later and Sabine relaxes immediately when she sees him, tugging him into a tight hug. "I'm glad you're okay." 

Chat hugs her back, relief flooding him. "Sorry I didn't come on Sunday." 

Sabine shakes her head. "None of that. Come in, come in, do you want a drink?" 

"I can't stay long," Chat answers. "I just had... I just needed to talk to someone." 

"Of course," Sabine says, shutting the door behind Chat and leading him over to the couch. "I notice you conveniently appeared after Marinette left." 

Chat manages a sheepish smile. "Yeah." 

"What did she do?" Sabine asks, prodding lightly at exactly what Chat wants to talk about. 

He has to be careful how he phrases this. As upset as he is with her right now, Chat isn't here to out Marinette as Ladybug to her parents. 

He isn't sure why he's here, honestly. Because he feels at peace here? Because this is more of a home than his house? Because Sabine is the closest thing he's had to a mother since-- 

He cuts that train of thought off immediately. 

"I... she kept something from me," Chat finally says. "Something big. Something she knew I should have known. And I get her reasons, but what got to me was that she admitted she never planned to tell me. _Never_." He cuts off before he says too much. 

Sabine squeezes his shoulder. "Ah." She pauses for a second. "It is a rather _big_ secret, isn't it?" 

Chat startles, glancing over. That seems too... specific. Pausing for a moment to think, he asks, "Did she tell you?" being as vague as possible. 

Sabine laughs at that. "Of course not. She'd tell you first if she was going to tell anyone. Once I saw her with you, though, it wasn't hard to figure out." 

Chat swallows. "Just to be clear, we're about about the fact that she's..." He cuts off before he actually says it. 

"Ladybug." Sabine finishes his sentence. "Yes." 

Chat deflates. "How long have you known?" 

"A few weeks," Sabine says. "Not too long." 

"And you haven't told her you know?" Chat asks. "She still thinks it's a secret?" 

Sabine nods, smiling softly. "The fact that she goes out there and saves the city is _terrifying_ , but I couldn't be prouder of her for doing. If she needs to keep it a secret to concentrate and come home safe, then that's fine with me." 

Chat sighs. "I found out because _Marinette_ was in trouble. If I'd _known_ then maybe things would have been different." 

"Would they have, though?" Sabine prods lightly. 

"I wouldn't have spent so long trying to contact her," Chat says, but – would that have made a difference? Instead he'd have just spent that time worrying about her, instead of being distracted from his worry. Mari had been unconscious when he'd been frantically calling Ladybug – if his mind hadn't been so occupied with getting in touch with his partner, he'd still have been a mess. He sighs. "Maybe it wouldn't have made a difference." 

Sabine squeezes his shoulder. "She's stubborn, but she means well and tries to protect everyone around her." 

"I know." Chat sighs, leaning back on the couch. "It's one of the things that makes her such a good Ladybug." 

"And such a difficult friend?" Sabine guesses. 

Chat manages a small smile at that. "Don't tell her I came by?" 

"Of course," Sabine promises. "But you _can_ stay, Chat." 

"She won't be out forever, and I need to think," Chat says, offering a forced smile. "Thank you, though. I'll see you soon," he promises, and Sabine smiles as he lets himself out the window and starts making his way across the city to clear his head and get his racing thoughts in order. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long! Half of these scenes were written but all of them needed reworking and... yeah. <3 Thanks for sticking with me.


	9. Chapter 9

Chat waits for Ladybug at their regular meeting place on Wednesday, trying not to awkwardly shift too much and draw attention from the street below. Thus far, they've managed to keep their meeting places under wraps from the public, and with everything else going on, the last thing he wants to do is ruin that. 

He steals a glance at his burner phone, freed from his transformation just in case – she's late. 

Is she coming?  _Should_ Chat be expecting her to come? He stands up, turning around to pace across the rooftop despite his want to stay out of sight, and almost runs straight into his spotted partner. 

She jumps, startled, and a blush jumps up behind her mask. "Um. Hey." 

Chat stiffens slightly, everything he had wanted to say disappearing suddenly. "Hey." 

"I..." Ladybug hesitates, seemingly having the same problem. "We should..." She gestures behind her, to their regular patrol path. Chat relaxes slightly, nodding – patrol is familiar and will give him a chance to get his thoughts together. Without another word, the two of them take off on their most silent patrol, making their way across the rooftops towards the Eiffel Tower. 

The silence persists until almost halfway through their route, when Ladybug suddenly stops in place and freezes, blurting out. "I'm not sorry." 

Chat startles, whirling around. "I--" 

"Let me finish," Ladybug interrupts him, hesitating momentarily before continuing. "I'm not sorry I didn't tell you. I would do it again, if I thought it would keep you, Maman, and Papa safe," she says, pausing only to take a breath. "But I am sorry for how you found out and for how I handled it, and I'm sorry that I hurt you the way I did. That was never my intention in hiding who I was, and I... and I'm sorry for that." 

Chat stands there for a moment in stunned silence, watching Ladybug redden again behind her mask.  

"Anywayweshouldgetbacktopatrol--" she blurts, pushing forward and past him, but he reaches out and grabs her arm, stopping her. 

"I'm sorry I left," he says, not letting go of her wrist. "I didn't understand, I didn't..." He pauses. "I didn't realize. I was upset and I upset  _you_ , and--" he cuts off. "You'd just been hurt – kidnapped by an  _akuma_  - and I was so  _worried_ , Mari--" 

Ladybug cuts him off. "I know. I'm – I'm sorry."  

Chat shakes his head, and they both fall into an awkward silence for a few beats before Chat breaks it with a quick, "We should finish our patrol." 

"R-right." Ladybug nods. "We should do that." She pulls her arm lightly from Chat's grip – he hadn't even realized he was still holding it – and zips her yo-yo out, flying off to the next building. Chat takes a moment to take a deep breath and try and even out his nerves before quickly following. 

The rest of their patrol goes smoothly with a little less tension hanging in the air between them, but no less silence. When they finally make it to the Eiffel Tower, Chat's steeled himself enough – he's ready. "So, um – Bug?" 

Ladybug lands lightly on the scaffolding, turning to him. "Yeah?" 

Chat takes a breath – why is he  _nervous_ , he's wanted to do this since the day he started getting  _close_  to Marinette – and offers a smile. "Time for me to return the favor now?" 

"No!" Ladybug blurts, startled, and Chat jumps, startled. "Sorry, I-" She hesitates. "I don't want you to tell me." 

Chat falters a bit. "You don't want to know?" 

"Of  _course_  I want to know," Ladybug sighs, shivering and wrapping her arms around herself. 

"Then... why?"  

Ladybug hesitates. "Because if I'm captured again – if an akuma decides to make  _me_  talk like the Medusa akuma made Alya talk – I don't want to put you in danger." Ladybug answers. 

"I can take care of myself, Marinette." Chat softens, stepping towards her carefully. 

"I know you can." Ladybug assures him, lifting her head to look at him. "But where that situation was hypothetical before, it's  _happened_  now. I would have told her if she'd had me under her control instead of Alya." She shivers. "Alya handed me over on a silver platter and had no choice about it. I could have endangered  _everyone_  I love. I won't endanger you." 

"Mari..." Chat frowns. "I  _want_ you to know. Please trust me _."_  

"I do trust you. I don't trust myself." She forces a reassuring smile. "When it's safer," she adds, "you can tell me everything." 

Chat swallows, stomach full of rocks, but he nods, hesitating only momentarily before he offers a lighthearted, "We still on for movie night on Friday?" 

He can see relief flood Ladybug and she practically beams at him as she nods. "Absolutely. We still have quite a movie deficit to make it through." 

Chat can't help a small smile at that. "See you Friday, then," he says ( _and every other day this week in class_ , he doesn't add, no matter how much he wants to.) 

She grins again, "See you," and swings out her yo-yo, swinging back across Paris towards the bakery. 

Chat sits there in silence for a good ten minutes before he finally heads home as well. 

* 

Marinette walks into school the next day in a noticeably better mood, and Alya, of course, notices immediately, tugging her off to the side of the room so she can hiss, "Okay, what happened?"  

"Not much, but we talked," Marinette says, shifting a little under Alya's scrutiny. "He's coming over on Friday like he usually does, and hopefully things will be better." 

Alya grins, shoving her lightly, "See, Mari, I told you things would be fine." 

Marinette rolls her eyes. "Things aren't  _fine_  yet," she insists – because man, the two of them have a lot to work out, still - "but they're better." 

"Good." Alya chirps. "Does that mean I can bug you about him now?" 

"Absolutely not." Marinette insists, staring her down. "Alya, he's just another guy like you and me." 

"Except that he's a superhero, and last I checked--" She's cut off by Mme. Bustier calling the class to order, and Marinette takes the opportunity to slip away and into her seat, leaving Alya with no choice but to slide into her temporary seat next to Adrien. 

Marinette smiles despite the 'we'll talk about this later' glare Alya shoots her way, and settles in for class. 

* 

By the time the end of the school day rolls around, Adrien is ready to just go home, curl up underneath about seventeen blankets, and not move for at least three hours. It's not that he's tired – he  _is_ , but he also doesn't think he could sleep if he tried – he's just completely drained, and he doesn't know why. 

Well, that's a lie. He knows exactly why and it has a lot to do the with girl who sits behind him in class. 

Alya had noticed him acting off all day, passing him her (apparently regular) notes with scribbled, significantly less angry doodles in the margins in an attempt to cheer him up, and they'd helped, honestly. But every time she turned around to talk to Marinette, it was a reminder, and he just needs to get out of there. 

"Hey, dude, are you alright?"  

Adrien snaps out of his thoughts, glancing up at Nino, who's giving him a concerned look. 

"Just tired," Adrien lies. "Been busy." 

"Your dad is seriously working you too hard," Alya complains. "You've been acting off all day." She frowns. "Hey, we should work on our project after school – somewhere that  _isn't_  your house." 

That's not exactly what Adrien had in mind. He goes to speak up, to make some excuse about a shoot or a meeting, but Marinette pipes up before he has a chance to. 

"Nino and I were going to work at my house," she offers with a smile. "My parents will be downstairs, so we'll have the living room to ourselves, if you want to come work with us." 

"I'm in," Alya grins, exchanging a look with Nino that Adrien's sure she thought was sneaky but absolutely wasn't. Marinette doesn't seem to notice, turning to him to offer a smile. 

"Adrien?" 

"I can't," Adrien finds himself lying, forcing the words out past the quick agreement that had almost spilled out, and Marinette's face falls a little. 

"Dude, you can't let your dad work you like this," Nino protests. 

"It isn't even his fault, I've got Chinese," Adrien piles on lie after lie. "Sorry. Maybe we can work on the project at lunch tomorrow?" He glances at Alya.  

Alya makes a face but nods. "Sure, that's fine – we have plenty of time – but you really..." She sighs. "Just don't work on it tonight, alright? Use whatever time you were going to work on it to sleep." 

Adrien nods. "Alright, yeah. Promise." 

Marinette shoots him a concerned, strange look, but she doesn't push at all, thankfully. Adrien turns back to face forward as their teacher calls them back to attention.  

He got away with that somehow, this time, but he can't keep bailing on his friends because being around Marinette is too difficult. There's no way he can keep this up. 

No – no, he just has to get used to it again. He'd gotten through months of hanging out with Marinette as Chat Noir without feeling the urge to turn around in his seat and call her Princess, or drop any other hints as to who he was. 

_Because Ladybug wanted you to, because you wanted to tell her first,_ a small, stubborn part of his brain reminds him, and it's not wrong, but...  

No. He can do this. He can hang out with his friends (with her) and pretend nothing is wrong. Next time they ask him to go to the bakery, he can pretend he's never been there before, pretend he doesn't see it as a second home (as more of home than his own), pretend everything is fine. 

He just needs time, he just needs to get his thoughts together, he just... 

He's screwed. 

* 

Alya ends up coming to the bakery with them anyway, even though Adrien can't make it – he doesn't have  _Chinese_ on Thursdays, or at least he never  _used_  to have Chinese on Thursdays... -  so she and Nino don't  _actually_  get much work done on their project. Still, after scrambling to get as much of their forgotten project done in the half hour between when Alya leaves to head home and when Nino needs to be home, Marinette's ready for a quiet night – so she's expecting an akuma will come knocking any moment. 

She isn't expecting Chat. 

She glances up as he taps on the skylight and startles as she spots him, waving him in, speaking as soon as he's flopped down onto her bed. "Is everything okay?" 

"You never used to ask that when I'd visit you," Chat teases, but there's something... off about his voice that immediately answers her question anyway. She frowns, pulling herself up to the loft to sit beside him.  

"What's wrong?" She prods. 

Chat's silent for a minute, not looking at her, not really looking at anything, before he finally just says, softly, "It's killing me that you won't let me tell you who I am." 

Marinette flinches, squeezing her eyes shut as she forces out, "Chat—you  _know_  why I won't let you tell me." 

Chat stiffens, still not looking at her. "Shouldn't it be my choice?" He mumbles. "I don't think you realize how much I see you as a civilian, Mari – it wasn't this difficult when I was holding onto Ladybug knowing first, but you  _are_  Ladybug, and--" 

Marinette cuts him off sharply. "I want more than anything to know, Chat, but I don't  _trust_  myself! I refuse to put you in that sort of danger!" She snaps. 

" _I'm_ putting myself in danger. Mari, I trust you, I trust you more than anything!" Chat snaps right back at her. 

"That's the problem!" Marinette growls out, but she's interrupted before she can continue by a crash outside. Clenching her hands in her blanket, she takes a deep breath to calm herself down. "Sorry, I didn't mean to yell." 

Chat shakes his head. "Yes you did. We both did." He sighs. "I don't think we're ever going to agree on this and I feel like we're going to go in circles until one of us gets the other angry enough that we stop talking again." 

Marinette stiffens. "That was the hardest two days I've had in a long time, Chat, I--" she cuts herself off, taking a breath. "I don't want to lose you. Not to this, Chat,  _please_." 

"You're not going to lose me, Princess," Chat promises, tucking a strand of hair that's escaped her pigtails back behind her ear.  

They're silent for a second, but another crash from outside breaks it, and Marinette sighs. "It's an akuma, isn't it?" 

Chat's still for a second before he forces himself to get up and peek out the skylight. "Looks like it. Duty calls, m'lady." 

Marinette groans, but reaches over to nudge her sleeping kwami. "C'mon Tikki – we have work to do. 

* 

Compared to their last two akumas, this one is almost  _easy –_ and thinking that is Ladybug's first mistake. Maybe it's the fact that it's late at night, or the fact that they're both still reeling from their argument, but she and Chat aren't fighting as smoothly as they usually do. So, when he sees an opening, shouts a quick idea, and swoops in to grab the akuma's necklace, she's not there, not ready, to cover his back. The akuma's arm comes swinging down and she's too slow to get her yo-yo out, misses her window to help, misses her window to warn him, to do  _anything -_ and Chat is knocked away, head-first into a nearby chimney. 

She feels an impending sense of déjà vu as she watches Chat crumple to the rooftop. He doesn't look as hurt as when he'd been stepped on – no visibly broken bones, at least – but he's not conscious, possibly concussed, and not moving. 

He succeeded – he got the akuma's necklace, and purifying it is a simple task thanks to that – but when he needed her there, needed her to cover him the way he  _always_  covers her, she wasn't ready. She was too distracted by her own thoughts and her own-- 

Ladybug cuts off her racing thoughts as the butterflies from the miraculous cure finish their work. She leaves her partner just long enough to get the victim down off the roof, and then swings right back up and over to his side. 

Her first thought is to drag him to the bakery, but they're clear across town,  _on a rooftop_ , and there's no way she's going to keep her transformation – and thus her Ladybug-enhanced strength – long enough. She settles for moving him carefully away from the chimney, setting him carefully down in a more comfortable position, and letting her transformation drop. An exhausted Tikki floats into her hands. 

"Can you tell if Chat's okay?" Marinette asks, sitting down carefully next to him on the rooftop and offering Tikki a cookie from her purse. 

Tikki nods. "He's okay, he just needs to rest." 

Marinette nods back. "Thanks, Tikki," she says, tucking the exhausted kwami into her bag so she can finish eating and get some rest, before she turns back to her unconscious partner. His injuries are less severe than the time he was stepped on, but he can't hold onto his transformation forever, especially since he was transformed before the akuma had even attacked. Plus, if Plagg's expending energy to heal him... 

And sure enough, a minute later, his miraculous beeps. 

What is she supposed to do? Cover his face with something? Leave him here on the roof by himself? There are no couches to awkwardly rearrange this time. 

She doesn't move. 

_"I would tell them," Chat admits. "In a heartbeat."_  

 Four minutes. 

Marinette stands up and paces the rooftop, full of restless, nervous energy.  

_"_ _I_ want _you to know. Please trust me."_  

_"I do trust you. I don't trust myself."_  

Three minutes. 

She tightens her hands at her side, halting her pacing and physically forcing herself not to move, shaking lightly.  

He wants you to know, she reminds herself. He trusts you. You trust him. 

Two minutes. 

He's your  _partner_. (You love him.) 

One. 

Marinette squeezes her eyes shut as soon as she sees the green light, chickening out immediately.  She takes deep breaths, trying to calm herself, trying to force herself to open her eyes. 

"Marinette?" A soft voice asks, and Marinette feels a small paw touch her cheek. 

"Plagg?" She guesses. 

"Open your eyes," he urges. "He's driving me crazy, he  _wants_  you to know." 

"What if I get him hurt?" Marinette asks softly. 

"You might," Plagg says. "But he thinks it's worth the risk." 

He's your partner. 

(You love him.) 

She peeks her eyes open, slowly, forcing herself to look at the detransformed blonde a few feet away, and her entire body relaxes as soon as she identifies him. 

"Adrien," she breathes, glancing over at Plagg, who's grinning at her. "He's Adrien?" 

Plagg nods. "He's Adrien." 

He's  _Adrien_. Chat Noir is Adrien. 

_"_ _I don't think you realize how much I see you as a civilian, Mari_ _."_  

Of  _course_ he's Adrien. Marinette doesn't try to stop the relieved and ecstatic laugh bubbling up from within her.  

* 

Adrien wakes up to a pounding head and spots in his vision. It takes him a moment to figure out where he is, but the night sky above and the hard surface below help him put the pieces together pretty quickly. Why is he on a  _roof_? 

He tries to push himself up, but someone is suddenly at his side, grabbing his arm to help steady him. "Take it slow, you hit your head pretty hard." 

Adrien knows that voice. He blinks to try and clear his vision more and glances over to see Marinette smiling warmly at him. "Mari?" 

"Hey, kitty," she greets. "How's the head?" 

He winces at the memory, and she grimaces. "If it's anything like when Treebeard smacked me, you'll be out of it for a few hours, but it'll go away." 

He nods, and immediately regrets it, groaning and leaning into her without meaning to. She tightens her arms around him, squeezing him lightly until the spots start to fade away and he feels comfortable enough to sit up again. 

"Better?" Mari asks. 

"A little," Adrien mumbles, running a hand through his hair to try and push it out of his eyes. 

Wait. He's not transformed.  

Did Marinette call him 'kitty'? "Did you call me 'kitty'?" 

She flushes. "Sorry! I know I haven't done that in a while, I didn't mean to make anything awkward or anythi--" 

Adrien cuts her off, grabbing her wrist to stop her in her tracks and turning to look from his ungloved hand to her face. "You let me detransform in front of you." 

Marinette flushes even deeper. "I... yes." She takes a breath. "Hi, Adrien." 

He can't help but smile, relief flooding him. She  _knows_. "Hi, Princess." 

She shoves him lightly, "Oh come on, not when you're not Chat!" She protests, flush creeping back into her cheeks. 

He grins, ignoring his still-pounding head to lean forward and into her personal space. "Oh, so you don't mind it as long as I'm Chat, then?" He teases. 

Marinette turns on him. "You know that's not what I--" 

He's leaning in before he even really thinks about it, pressing his lips to hers and cutting her off mid-sentence. She stiffens for only a second before she softens against him, pulling him in closer.  

He pulls back a second later. "I'm sorry, what was that?" 

The flush in Marinette's cheeks seems to be there to stay, but now she's smiling, rolling her eyes at him as she teases out a, "Just shut up, you silly cat," and pulls him right back in. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this chapter took so long, it gave me so much trouble. Huge huge huge huge huge thank you to Eriyu for reading through it about eight hundred times and wading through my ranting notes about the chapter as I struggled to write it. Thank you thank you thank you. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed! One chapter left (and hopefully a much shorter wait.) <3


	10. Chapter 10

Marinette goes to sleep that night content for the first time in almost a week, and wakes up worried that it was a dream and that she and Chat are still fighting. She lies there in a panic for a moment, staring up at her ceiling, before she rolls over to grab her phone and is greeted by a sappy good morning text from Adrien. 

Not a dream then.  _Thankfully_. 

"Marinette, you'll be late for school!" 

She jumps, almost tumbling off her bed, and wakes up a very sleepy Tikki. 

"Mmh, she's right – we need to go." Tikki rubs her eyes. 

Marinette offers an apologetic smile. "You can sleep in my bag." 

"Mmkay," Tikki nods, letting Marinette pick her up and tuck her away into her bag, asleep again almost immediately. 

* 

Marinette hurries towards the school, careful to not jostle her bag – and sleeping kwami – too much, and almost runs straight into Adrien. 

"Oh – hey!" She grins at him, stepping backwards. "You're early." 

"You're actually just late," he teases. "How do you manage that when you live next door?" 

Marinette rolls her eyes at him. "Well, a certain  _alley_ _cat_ kept me out most of the night," she mumbles at him, walking past him to head inside so she won't actually be late. 

Adrien laughs, following her into the school, but before they can reach their classroom door, he leads her down into a side hallway. "Speaking of last night," he leans in to kiss her. 

Marinette squeaks. "Wait, Adrien-" She steps deftly away from him, flushing in embarrassment and glancing up and down the thankfully empty hallway. "Not here." 

Adrien blinks, stepping back, tripping over an apology, "Sorry! Did I make you uncomfortable? I just figured we-- I didn't know you wanted it to be a secret." 

Marinette flushes deeper, shaking her head and stammering out, "No, no, it's not that!"  

Adrien hesitates. "Then..." 

"Look, I..." Marinette huffs out a sigh. "Alya knows I have feelings for Chat Noir," she finally says, and ignores the smirky smile starting to form on Adrien's face. "And she knows I  _used_  to have feelings for you." 

"Used to?" Adrien teases. 

"Shut it." Marinette shoves him lightly. "My  _point_  is - if I have feelings for Chat Noir and suddenly start dating Adrien out of nowhere despite my ridiculous crush on you evaporating when I started falling for..." she pauses. "Well,  _you_. She'll notice. And I love her and I trust her but she runs the  _Ladyblog_. We can't risk her figuring you out." 

Adrien frowns. "Yeah, I guess Alya figuring me out would be a problem. And might lead right into her figuring you out," he glances at her. 

Marinette wraps her arms around herself. "I don't honestly think she'd go telling everyone on the Ladyblog, but... I don't want her to be in any more danger either." 

Adrien smiles softly, stepping forward to push some hair out of Marinette's face. "Okay - so Chat Noir and Marinette are dating, then. Not Adrien and Marinette." 

"And not Ladybug and Chat," Marinette warns. "Or she'll think you're cheating on me and no one wants to see what Alya will do to you." 

Adrien laughs at that, but he sobers quickly. "Hey, Mari... you know - being a superhero's girlfriend, no matter how quiet we keep it... that'll put you in a lot of danger, you know." 

Marinette smiles at him. "Hey, I'm Ladybug. I can handle a little danger." 

Adrien grins at that. "Come on, let's head back to class before anyone thinks we've been kidnapped by an akuma or something." 

Marinette groans. "Oh, don't say  _that,_ " she grumbles, but it's too late - Adrien's words have done their work. A crash and a scream sound from outside the school. 

Adrien doesn't even have the decency to look sheepish. "Oh well, duty calls. My lady?" 

Marinette shoves him again. "This is entirely your fault and I blame you," she informs him as she opens her purse to let Tikki out and tugs him into the storage closet behind them to transform. 

"I suppose I can live with that blame," Adrien teases, stealing a quick kiss in the relative privacy of the broom closet before transforming to take care of their little akuma problem. 

* 

Chloe huffs softly as she steps out of the back of her driver's car, ignoring Sabrina as she chatters away about some school project they're working on - well,  _she's_ working on, anyway - and turning her gaze to the sky as Ladybug and Chat Noir go swinging after another akuma. Ah, so  _that_ must have been the cause for the traffic in the way here. Annoying. 

"Chloe?" Sabrina pulls her attention back. "I asked if you wanted to go shopping after school?" 

Chloe blinks. "Didn't you say we had to work on our project?" She asks – a complete guess, but Sabrina will appreciate the effort, even if Chloe has no intentions of  _actually_ helping.  

Sabrina rolls her eyes and nudges her lightly. "Noooo, I said that I was  _finished_  with the project." She chirps.  

"Oh. Right, I knew that." Chloe answers, walking past Sabrina to head into the school. "Anyway, I can't go shopping tonight." 

Sabrina deflates, "Oh, okay," and Chloe winces – that came out way sharper than she expected it to. Come on, Chloe, you're trying to be  _nicer_  to Sabrina, remember? (She's the only one that deals with you anymore.) 

"No, no – it's not that I don't  _want_  to," Chloe promises. "I've just got a dumb dinner thing with my dad." 

Sabrina glances up, and her face softens. " _Another_ one?" 

Chloe shrugs, glancing away from her. "Yeah. And it'll be a different one next week, so it doesn't even matter." She drops the subject – Sabrina looks seemingly appeased and Chloe really doesn't want to talk about it anyway – and speeds up, heading up the stairs to their classroom, where, surprise surprise, half the students are missing, likely due to an akuma attack. 

"Well, maybe tomorrow then?" Sabrina asks, taking her seat next to Chloe and pulling out her notebook. 

"Yeah, tomorrow sounds good." Chloe offers a smile. She hesitates for a moment, before nudging Sabrina. "Hey, you should see if  _your_ dad can make it home for dinner." 

Sabrina smiles at that. "You think? He's usually so busy..." 

"It doesn't hurt to  _ask_  him." Chloe shrugs.  

Sabrina's smile widens. "True. Yeah, okay, I'll ask!" She pulls out her phone, sending a quick message, and then tucks it away quickly before their teacher can start class. 

* 

Chloe forgets about it until the end of lunch, when she and Sabrina are walking back towards the school. Her mind is focused on the impending dinner with her dad that evening, and the inevitable new friend he'll want to introduce her to. 

Is it so bad to miss her mom? Is it really so selfish to not want to watch her dad parade around with a hundred other women so soon - five years – after her mom's death? 

...Probably, since  _everything_  she does is apparently selfish. 

Sabrina makes a soft sound of disappointment next to her as they approach the school steps, and Chloe startles, stopping to glance back at her friend. 

"What?" She asks, frowning at Sabrina, who's staring, defeated, at her phone. 

"O-oh." Sabrina jumps. "It's nothing." She shakes her head, tucking her phone away. 

"Sabrina." Chloe stops her. " _What_?" 

"No, no – my dad can't make dinner. It's fine, I don't know what I was expecting – he's busy." Sabrina shakes her head again. "It's okay, really," she promises, forcing the fakest smile Chloe has ever seen onto her face. 

_Shit_ – this is Chloe's fault. She'd suggested Sabrina try asking her dad,  _she'd_  gotten her hopes up that her dad would come through. (What is it with  _dads_ , why do they all have to flake out like this? Between her dad and his "friends" and Sabrina's dad and work – hell, even  _Adrien's_ dad doesn't know how to treat his own son as more than an  _employee_.)  

She can't just leave Sabrina hanging to have dinner alone – not after she got her hopes up in the first place... 

Well, hey. If everything Chloe does is selfish anyway, why not just embrace it? 

"You know what – let's go shopping tonight," Chloe says, making Sabrina startle. 

"Wait – what about your dad?" She asks, frowning again. 

"There will be more dinners, and dad won't care." Liar. "He'll have a new friend to introduce me to next week, and this'll all be forgotten."  

Sabrina starts to smile for real. "You really want to?" 

"I mean, I won't offer again," Chloe grumbles, glancing away from Sabrina now that she's finally smiling again.  

Sabrina grabs her arm and squeezes lightly – the closest anyone gets to hugging with Chloe – and grins. "Thank you, Chloe!" 

"Yeah, yeah – come on, we'll be late for class." Chloe pushes Sabrina away from her lightly and heads up the stairs into the school without a glance backwards. 

* 

From not too far away down the road, an older man plays with the hairpin in his pocket for a moment before mumbling softly, "Well, what do you think?" 

A small, yellow kwami peeks her head out of his collar to glance back at the school building. "I like her!" 

"Doesn't seem like most people do," he warns. 

"Most people don't like  _me_ either," she huffs. 

"Oh, you don't say," another voice mumbles from within the man's pocket. 

The yellow kwami squeaks. " _Meaaaan_ , Wayzz!" 

The man smiles. "Your mind is made up, then, Pollen?" 

Pollen grins. "You wouldn't have asked if you didn't think she was the right fit, after all." 

The man nods. "Very well. I just hope Ladybug and Chat Noir are up to the task of training a new partner. 

With that, he sets off back down the street away from the school to make preparations. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand that's it for Suffer for a Secret, SfaS, or as I've been lovingly referring to it this entire time, Sassafras. An extra special (almost-birthday) thanks to Eriyu once more, for continuing to read and help me through my plot hiccups. <33333
> 
> Keep an eye out, though - a sequel should be coming soon! I've got some life stuff happening starting next week (and was determined to make sure this was done before said life stuff) so I might not be able to get the first chapter out for a while, but I hope you all enjoy it when it does arrive. Thank you all for reading and sticking with me through this. Hope to see you all for the sequel!


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